New Delhi: Air India is planning to buy more than 200 new planes in the next 5 years to serve more and more passengers, with 70 per cent of them being narrow-bodied aircraft, aviation industry sources said on Sunday.
Air India has decided to procure its maiden batch of wide-bodied A350 aircraft from Airbus and the first plane is likely to be delivered to the airline by March 2023.
However, it was not immediately clear how many A350 aircraft will be purchased by the Tata Group-owned airline.
The talks with Airbus and Boeing for narrow-bodied aircraft are still on, the sources claimed.
Air India has not bought a single aircraft since 2006 when it placed orders for purchasing 111 aircraft — 68 from the US-based aircraft manufacturer Boeing and 43 from European aircraft manufacturer Airbus.
The Tata Group took control of Air India on January 27 after successfully winning the bid for the airline on October 8 last year.
As per Air India’s website, the airline has a total of 49 wide-bodied aircraft – 18 Boeing B777, 4 Boeing B747 and 27 Boeing B787 – in its fleet. The carrier has 79 narrow-bodied planes in its fleet too.
