Airline Company Air India It will increase the number of premium, economy and business class seats on its aircraft to take advantage of the ‘huge growth opportunities’. The company will realign flight timings to carry more connecting traffic and rationalize the network to utilize the desired capacity. According to a senior company official, Tata Group, which has been running loss-making Air India since January 2022, has integrated its airline business and Air India Group’s revenue will be less than one billion dollars in the financial year 2019-20. It has now increased almost 10 times compared to 10 billion dollars.
However, the depreciation of the rupee against the US dollar has put pressure on the cost structure and profits of airline Air India. However, the airline has some natural defense as it can charge higher fares for international flights where tickets are priced in foreign currencies, a senior company official said. The Indian rupee has been falling in recent weeks and hit a record low of 86.04 against the US dollar on January 10.
Air India operates 1,168 flights daily
The Air India Group operates 1,168 flights daily, including 313 services to international destinations. Of these foreign flights, 244 are short haul and 69 are long haul. Generally, short-haul flights have a duration of up to five hours, and long-haul flights have a duration of five to eight hours. Air India chief commercial officer (CCO) Nipun Agarwal said whether premium economy or commercial, traffic has increased and ‘we are seeing a lot of momentum’. He said that we are very focused on the premium segment (premium economical and commercial class) and there is a lot of opportunity in it. Revenue growth in the front cabin has been around 2.3 times and in the rear cabin it has been 1.3 times. We have been able to achieve this through better timing, better experience at the airport, in-flight and better quality of food.
A350-1000 aircraft will have first class seats
Airline Air India’s wide-body A350-1000 aircraft will have first class seats. The airline sees opportunities across its network, where these seats will come in handy as the airline continues its efforts to capture greater share of the global skies. Air India now has 202 aircraft in its fleet, including 67 widebody aircraft. Of these, 27 are B777 and 40 are B787. The 67 wide-body aircraft, all legacy B777s and some leased B777 aircraft, have first class seats. The larger aircraft – the A350-1000 and B777X – will have 325-400 seats. These aircraft are to be inducted in the coming years and the A350-1000 is expected to be inducted in the next two years.
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