Air India to lease planes for international routes
With shortage of aircraft affecting its services on long haul routes, Air India has charted out plans to induct leased planes to maintain its international schedules and launch new routes.
By PTI |
NEW DELHI: With shortage of aircraft affecting its services on long haul routes, Air India has charted out plans to induct leased planes to maintain its international schedules and launch new routes.
The current fleet was short by one aircraft and the airline was operating without a standby plane, severely affecting its punctuality and schedule integrity, official sources said.
To handle the situation, Air India has recently held negotiations to lease planes after it received offers for wet- lease of two Boeing 747-400s and two Airbus A340-300s.
The two Boeing jets would replace similar planes to maintain the present daily Mumbai-Chicago flight, while the Airbus aircraft would be deployed on Dhaka-Kolkata-London and Mumbai-London routes.
Two A330s are also being leased for deployment on the new India-Hong Kong route from November one and on India-Mauritius-Johannesburg route from December 15.
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The aircraft, Boeing-767 and A-310s, would be released due to the deployment of the leased planes. These jets would be utilised for enhancing operations to the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong, for which the carrier has got new bilateral entitlements.As the national carrier starts inducting aircraft from Boeing, it has started the non-stop Mumbai-New York flight on August 1 and will launch the direct Delhi-New York (JFK Airport) flight from January 7 next year. A direct thrice-a- week Bangalore-San Fransisco flight will start in May next year.
From this winter schedule, Air India plans to start a Delhi-Frankfurt-San Fransisco flight from October 27, besides the existing one to Los Angeles, the sources said. It would also have a flight from Mumbai to these two American cities via Frankfurt, thereby delinking the earlier service to Los Angeles touching both Mumbai and Delhi.
With the induction of its fifth B 777-200 (Long Range), the airline would launch a non-stop flight between Bangalore and San Fransisco would be launched by May next year.
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For long-haul international routes, AI would receive three new Boeing 777-300 (Extended Range) planes by the end of this month and four more in September, October, November and January.For its short and medium haul network, the airline would receive six Airbus A-321s and five A-319s up to March next year. Of these, three would be used for replacement and eight for expanding its domestic and global routes, they said.
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These planes would be utilised to enhance operations to Dubai, Kathmandu, Singapore, Muscat, Sharjah and Bangkok on the international sector. Its low-cost arm, AI Express, would operate three additional B 737-800s of which, one would be deployed on international routes and two on the domestic sector.Start a SIP with as low as ₹500 with ET Money App!
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