What Air India's new timeline for full retrofit of its planes means
The airline also informed that the first of 26 B787s is now in Victorville, California (United States) for a retrofit and would return to service in December this year. The two class 787s, currently configured with 18 business and 238 economy class seats, are being converted to three-class, which will see the introduction of a premium economy class. This includes the installation of brand-new seats in each cabin, advanced in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems, new carpeting, curtains, upholstery, lavatories, galleys and more—all aligned with the new Air India product and customer experience standards. Ten-year-old VT-ANT is the first aircraft undergoing the retrofit.
The 787s have been in the news more often after the crash of VT-ANB in Ahmedabad in June, whereas earlier, the 777s made headlines for diversions, chocked washrooms and other issues. The airline has subsequently conducted a thorough check of its fleet, reduced flying to maintain schedule integrity and taken other measures to boost customer confidence. The airline will also upgrade the avionics and other critical components of all legacy 787s to the latest industry standards.
This is not the first announcement for the retrofit; rather, this is one of the many announcements which have given different timelines, each missed and blamed on supply chain constraints. The airline unveiled a five-year transformation plan named Vihaan.AI in September 2022. When first announced in December 2022, the airline said the first aircraft would be back in service in mid-2024. In April 2023, the airline announced that the first of three phases of Vihaan.AI was complete.
This first phase, called Taxi, focused on addressing legacy issues of the airline at scale and laying the foundation for future growth. In August 2023, when the new brand was unveiled, Air India announced that the refurbishment programme would start in mid-2024.
Early this year, in March, the airline announced that the first of the widebody aircraft would fly out for retrofit in April, with the VT-ANT eventually leaving in July.
If the airline manages to adhere to its latest announced timeline of 2028, when it expects all 13 legacy 777s to be back in the fleet post-refit, the oldest 777 in the fleet will be 22 years old.
Air India had 16 legacy B777s at the time of privatisation, with three B777-200LRs now out of the fleet, the refit is necessary for 13 planes.
With delays in the refit programme, the airline started a revamp of the aircraft with new upholstery, carpets and fixing of seats along with IFE.
A handful of these planes are already in service. The cancellation of up to 15% of the airline's schedule following the Ahmedabad crash has helped improve its On-Time Performance, especially at a time when it must fly a circuitous route to avoid Pakistani airspace, which has been closed since the end of April.
Air India's narrowbody retrofit programme for its 27 legacy A320neo aircraft commenced last September and is expected to be completed by September this year, with a delay of only three months from the originally stated timeline.
The airline has parallelised the activity by adding a third line at GMR's MRO in Hyderabad, expediting the process. The other two lines are at Hosur and Nagpur.
The Tata group took over the airline from the government in January 2022. The initial announcements and subsequent changes indicate either a rush to make announcements without knowing the actual timelines, the airline not getting priority or not being able to crack the right deals.
It is a known fact that the aviation sector has been facing supply chain headwinds in just about everything, and seats and MRO slots are part of the shortage.
However, many other airlines around the world have rolled out new products in recent years, with refreshed and revamped aircraft entering service.
Air India has to introspect on what went wrong with its multiple announcements and whether it was better off not making any announcements until the first plane moved for retrofit?
For a brand with global ambitions, such announcements that are not followed up with action suggest a lack of seriousness on multiple fronts or a lack of operational ability. It looks like a case of being far too optimistic or a disconnect from reality.
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