Air India decides to retrofit 13 legacy A321 ceo planes
Amid supply chain woes, Air India has decided to retrofit its 13 legacy A321 ceo planes that were earlier planned to be taken out of service while the first of the airline's legacy Boeing 787-8 aircraft will go for retrofit in July. Air India, which is slowly expanding its fleet and networks, has a total of 191 planes, including 64 wide-bodies and 127 narrow-bodies.
Airline's CEO and MD Campbell Wilson told PTI that the first batch of the B 787s will go in for retrofit in July as there has been a little bit of push back because of certification delay of seats. "By the end of this financial year, hopefully about 68 per cent of the wide- body fleet will be upgraded and the complete fleet will be upgraded sometime in calendar 2027," he said in an interview. There are 27 legacy B787-8s with Air India.
The carrier has already started the heavy refresh programme of the legacy B777s and two of them are already back in service. Heavy refresh of an aircraft includes having new carpets, seat covers, cushions and fixing broken seats. The refresh of these planes is expected to complete by the end of this year. According to Wilson, the supply chain situation is getting progressively better.
"I believe 65-68 per cent of the narrow-body fleet has been upgraded. We are eyeing to complete all of them by the end of this year. We decided to extend the life of 13 aircraft (A321 ceos) that previously were to leave the fleet and those will be upgraded in the early part of next year. "Effectively, the narrow-body fleet (upgradation) will be completed this year," he said. In the wide-body category, Air India now has 6 A350s, 19 B777-300 ERs, 5 B777-200 LRs, 7 B787-9s and 27 B787-8s. Among the narrow-body fleet are 6 A319s, 94 A320 neos, 4 A320 ceos, 13 A321 ceos and 10 A321 neos. Aircraft deliveries as well as upgradation are getting delayed for many airlines, including Air India, mainly due to global supply chain woes. "I think it (supply chain situation) is getting progressively better. There are still constraints in a number of areas... it is progressively getting better over the years but it will still take I believe until 2029 or 2030," Wilson said. According to him, the bottlenecks are different for different aircraft.
"It is supply challenge for engines on narrow-body aircraft... there is the recovery of Boeing 737 programme to its previous pace. It is getting faster and meeting the milestones. They will take (for) catch up... things are just progressively easing up," the Air India CEO and MD said.
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