Will Air India move to order wide-body aircraft help Indians travelling abroad?

Air India received its first Airbus A350-900 aircraft in Delhi, the first of this variety of aircraft to arrive in the Tata-owned airline last week. The airline has ordered 20 aircraft of this variety.

The aircraft offers 28 luxurious private suites with full-flat beds in Business Class, 24 premium economy seats with extra legroom and comfort, and 264 spacious economy class seats.

These aircraft will give a range of 8,700 nautical miles to 9,000 nautical miles to the airline and can fly between the farthest points in the world. They can easily fly non-stop between Mumbai and Buenos Aires, Mumbai and Panama City (which, if it is to be mounted, will be the world’s longest flight), Delhi-Auckland or even connecting Thiruvananthapuram to Tel Aviv.

Low-key arrival ceremony

However, the arrival ceremony was a far cry from the time when the airline, still under government control, received its first Boeing 777 aircraft in July 2007. A press party was at hand to receive the aircraft as the airline took delivery of the aircraft in Seattle. It was a big moment for India and Indian aviation because a new variety of aircraft was joining the fleet of an Indian airline after close to two decades. Air India was largely dependent on the Boeing 747 variety of aircraft for operating long-haul flights, while the Airbus 320 variety was used for short-haul flights.

The Indian media contingent at the Seattle airfield for the 14-hour non-stop return flight to Delhi was excited not about the delivery aircraft for Air India but another aircraft that was standing right next to the brand new Air India aircraft --- Air Force 1, the aircraft that flies the US president. As excited newspersons clicked photographs of Air Force 1, menacing secret service personnel put their hands up in the air and instructed the media team to stop immediately, which we did. But no sooner were the media team on the delivery aircraft that the cameras were out again clicking pictures of Air Force 1.

Though this was a delivery flight, security and departure procedures were tight. Each passenger on the flight, which included the late Raghu Menon, who later headed Air India, V Thulasidas, Dinesh Keskar, the former Boeing India head, Air India officials and the media team had to get their passports stamped by immigration at the Boeing airfield, go through security and then walk to the delivery aircraft with security personnel guiding the people on what route to follow.

Flying close to North Pole

Incidentally, the cockpit crew included Captain Amitabh Singh who was not commander of the aircraft but flew the aircraft. He rose to become Director of Operations in Air India and, soon after retirement in 2020, joined Vistara as an examiner on the Boeing 787. This was also the first Indian aircraft to fly close to the North Pole during the overflight. The cockpit crew explained to the aircraft journalists that the reflection they could see was an effect of global warming. “Global warming has seen the ice in the North Pole melt. This is what is leading to the reflection,” a cockpit member explained.

The aircraft flew non-stop and fast. There was an urgency to get to Delhi airport – the aircraft had to be handed over to the Special Protection Group as the then Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, was to see the aircraft a few days later along with other dignitaries including Praful Patel, the then Civil Aviation Minister.

The aircraft, like others in the 68 aircraft order AI had placed then, was named after a state in the country, and it landed in Delhi, having saved a lot of fuel as it was a smooth flight and the winds had been kind. All those on this special flight were hurriedly taken off the aircraft, and they went through immigration, after which the delivery aircraft was moved to a special area for the SPG to take over for Dr Manmohan Singh’s visit.

Fulfilling Air India dreams

Air India had a lot of ambitions then, and Thulasidas, the then Chairman and Managing Director of the airline had many dreams for the state-owned carrier. One of his dreams outlined in Seattle was mounting another fuel tank of the Boeing 777 aircraft on an Air India aircraft and flying between Bengaluru and San Francisco non-stop. Thulasidas’ dream has been fulfilled as AI is flying non-stop from India to San Francisco. In fact it is the only Indian and international carrier to operate non-stop on this route. Air India has also fulfilled many other of its dreams, like evacuating people from Wuhan when COVID just broke out in China.

In April 2019, AI became the first domestic airline to operate a flight using the ‘Dispatch with No Destination Alternate’ on its Boeing 787 from Delhi to Hyderabad.

Regulations require every flight to file a flight plan to an alternate city or airport where the aircraft can land in case of an emergency and carry adequate fuel to cover this distance. This means that the aircraft carries additional fuel, which is dead weight if there is no diversion from the intended destination. The heavier the aircraft, the more fuel it consumes while flying.

But AI’s Delhi-Hyderabad flight did not carry any extra fuel, making it more fuel efficient. Other domestic airlines followed AI’s example by launching similar flights.

However, such isolated initiatives are not enough to counterbalance the systemic issues within the airline. These include high operational costs, legacy staffing and management practices, and a market increasingly dominated by low-cost carriers.

Challenge for Indian carriers

Further, how much this small order of wide-body aircraft, the first of which was delivered last Saturday, will help Indian carriers carry more Indians travelling abroad is a big question.

Firstly, if one takes a look at the AI order of 470 aircraft, only 70 or about 15 per cent of the order is for wide-body aircraft, which can do non-stop flights to the farthest points in the world.

Further, in 2021, it was estimated that only 36 per cent of international air traffic to India goes to Indian carriers, while over 60 per cent of the revenue generated on these routes goes into foreign hands.

The Indian fleet, including Air India and IndiGo, is dominated by narrow-body aircraft that can fly for four to five hours, while the newer aircraft like the Airbus family New Engine Option aircraft and the Boeing MAX can fly six to seven hours.

Besides, the other challenge that Indian carriers will find difficult to face is that flydubai, the low-cost arm of Emirates, recently ordered the Boeing 787, adding a wide-body aircraft to its fleet for the first time while Emirates ordered 100 wide-body aircraft, including placing an order for an additional Airbus A 350-900. The first new aircraft will join the airline’s fleet in August 2024 and will see the airline receive A350 deliveries until early 2028. With the orders at the recently concluded Dubai Air Show, Emirates will have an order book of 310 wide-body aircraft.

(The writer is a senior aviation journalist based in New Delhi.)