Air India is undergoing a transformation at the moment, after being privatized. The airline is investing hugely in modernizing its fleet and improving the passenger experience. This includes ordering 470 new aircraft, introducing new cabins, retrofitting existing aircraft, and completely rebranding, including unveiling new uniforms.
Admittedly this has been a slow process, since you can’t reinvent an airline overnight. The airline has been making quite a few incremental improvements, but the most exciting development up until this point has just happened.
In this post:
Air India takes delivery of first Airbus A350-900
As part of Air India’s massive aircraft order, the airline is expecting to take delivery of 40 Airbus A350s:
- Air India has 20 Airbus A350-900s on order; the first six of these are being delivered in the coming months, as these are planes that were initially intended for Aeroflot, but due to sanctions, could no longer be delivered
- Air India will take delivery of 20 Airbus A350-1000s starting in 2025; these are jets that will be purpose built for Air India
You can expect that 14 of the A350-900s and all 20 A350-1000s will feature the new Air India passenger experience, including the carrier’s new long term cabins.
What’s exciting is that Air India has just taken delivery of its first Airbus A350-900. The plane has the registration code VT-JRA, and it just completed its delivery flight from Toulouse (TLS) to Delhi (DEL) today.
It’s also worth noting how quickly the airline will take delivery of these first six planes. The first A350-900 has just been delivered, and the next five are expected to be delivered by March 2024.
Since the A350 is a totally new plane for Air India, you can expect that the aircraft will first operate some domestic flights for crew familiarization purposes, before commencing long haul operations. Air India hasn’t yet announced its plans for this fleet. Will they fly to the United States, to Europe, or to somewhere else?
These A350s will be Air India’s first new wide body jets in quite some time. The airline has leased some used jets from other airlines to add short-term capacity while improving the passenger experience. This includes acquiring some former Delta 777-200LRs, former Etihad 777-300ERs, and former Singapore Airlines 777-300ERs.
What to expect from Air India’s A350 interiors
Air India’s Airbus A350-900s will feature a much improved passenger experience, though the first six planes won’t have Air India’s new signature interiors. Instead, Air India is inheriting the Aeroflot interiors that were planned for these aircraft initially, with only minor changes being made to the cabin finishes, to reflect Air India’s branding.
These planes will feature 316 seats, including 28 business class seats, 24 premium economy seats, and 264 economy seat. I recently flew a Turkish Airlines Airbus A350-900 that was also initially intended for Aeroflot, which gives you a sense of what to expect.
In business class, these planes feature the Collins Aerospace Horizon product, which is a staggered 1-2-1 configuration, with direct aisle access and doors at each seat. I rank this as being among the world’s best business class seats.
Meanwhile in premium economy, seats are in a 2-4-2 configuration.
As you’d expect, economy is in a 3-3-3 configuration, which is standard for the jet.
As a reminder, below is what Air India’s new business class will look like once the airline starts taking delivery of jets that weren’t intended for other airlines.
Bottom line
Air India has just taken delivery of its first Airbus A350-900, and five more are expected to join the carrier’s fleet by March 2024. This is an exciting development for the airline, as this is the first newly delivered wide body jet for the carrier in several years.
These six planes were initially intended for Aeroflot, so Air India will be inheriting those interiors. That’s ultimately good news, as this is a solid product. However, we’ll have to wait until later in 2024 to see a jet with Air India’s custom interiors.
What do you make of Air India’s new Airbus A350s?
India's aviation sector is littered with failure. A glitzy, gaudy marketing campaign and a massive aircraft order is one thing, but the fundamentals of reliable, good and consistent service is another. Air India has a long way to go.
Do these planes have enough range to fly nonstop to Nicaragua? Lots of demand on that route, and those pesky stops to refuel can really be a hassle...
The distance is comparable to JFK-SIN. I can promise there's nowhere near enough demand on that route to justify the cost. Hell, you'd be lucky to even get a 1-stop itinerary through MEX or MIA.
i think you missed the joke...there was a plane that got caught in paris refueling as it was smuggling indians into nicaragua
Well. More than 10k Latin Americans including criminals are illegally crossing US borders everyday, and you worry about few hundreds Indians with valid Nicaraguan visa. Problem is lax US policies and not Indians. World would appear different once you get out of your racist mindset.
How many months will it take for these to be fully roached out? AI's 787s already look like they're 30 years old.
I smell some hind parts burning!
Will definitely take longer than PIA. Btw, do they still let farji / fake pilots fly PIA?
@Lucky fyi some of your articles appear a bit wonky on the boarding area site. I’ve noticed this a few times now over the past few days. After your main headline the sub headline appears as “ Click to add lede (max to 3).”.
I have a feeling these will be on the BOM - LHR route in January. I am on a round trip in the second week of Jan and selected my seats just this morning. The seat map was definitely not the one used for either their B788 or B77W fleets - it was 1-2-1 in Business and staggered. Unless their seat map is badly done for phone screens and I have put myself in a bad seat.
This will not be true. It will take a few weeks before India’s DGCA clears and allows it to commence commercial flights, following this, there will be a few months of domestic familiarisation flights within India and only then will it go long-haul. So your Jan flight will not be the A350 all things considering.
A quick search of the seat map on EF for AI131 BOM-LHR does in fact show a staggered layout. It says 77W though. So if it is indeed a 77W then it is probably the former EY 77W. The ex DL 77L have a similar layout too.
THese will replace the ex-DL 77L's on the BOM-SFO and BLR-SFO route. Again its a guess. Time will tell.
The ex-DL 77L's will be put to use on the other US-India nonstop routes.
Unfortunately not gonna happen in January!
Ex Etihad 77W has the 1-2-1 config and is already operational on BOM-LHR
Air India was able to get its A350-900s, the only -900s in its order, so quickly because some of them were already largely built for Aeroflot while others were in various stages of production.
Airbus and lessors have done a pretty good of clearing out the fairly small number of A350s that were grounded and Airbus is close to its sales contracts in delivering A350s.
AI will benefit from the A350s range to...
Air India was able to get its A350-900s, the only -900s in its order, so quickly because some of them were already largely built for Aeroflot while others were in various stages of production.
Airbus and lessors have done a pretty good of clearing out the fairly small number of A350s that were grounded and Airbus is close to its sales contracts in delivering A350s.
AI will benefit from the A350s range to grow its network fairly quickly and also because Indian airlines are not abiding by the Russian airspace sanctions.
The A350-1000 is an even more capable and efficient aircraft and will form the backbone of AI's longhaul international aircraft supplemented by a relatively few 777Xs that India undoubtedly bought to balance its relationships with both Europe and the US; although the 777-9 will be larger, it has less range even than the A350-900.
Indian aviation is finally going to be carried by Indian airlines instead of heavily carried by Middle East airlines to/from India so this AI's growth marks a monumental change in global aviation dynamics.
It will be interesting to see where the leased widebodies go as well as to know how the few A350s that Aeroflot bought before sanctions are doing given the lack of spare parts and stories of how badly western aircraft are maintained in Russia right now.
“Indian aviation is finally going to be carried by Indian airlines instead of heavily carried by Middle East airlines to/from India…”
We know this how?
Indian airlines have carried a smaller percentage of the country's international traffic than just about any other large country. The largest portion of Indian international traffic has been carried by the Middle East airlines esp. Emirates.
AI recognized the huge opportunity that was being left on the table which is part of why their growth plan should succeed. The ME airlines aren't going to walk away so fares should be very competitive.
There is no requirement for Air India to abide by any sanctions because Air India is not under any sanction to not overtly Russia. Lying several times doesn’t make it the truth.
@Tim Dunn - I don't know what your source of this info is but it is inaccurate. Indian carriers currently transport 44.3% of international traffic from India and this figure continues to grow.
Compare that to 31.6% in Australia, 22% in Brazil, 18% in South Africa etc..
Also gotta love the use of the word ‘undoubtedly’ where there’s no substantiation possible. “India doesn’t abide by the ‘sanctions’ but they ‘undoubtedly’ place orders to appease countries who place these so called sanctions.” Where can I send you a book on Critical Thinking 101?
that percentage is heavily skewed to the Middle East where Indian carriers do much better.
Now provide us w/ the stats for traffic outside of Asia.
@Tim Dunn - excluding traffic within Asia is a rather pointless metric for an airline that is based in Asia.
@Tim Dunn - Manipulating data to make a point seems pointless, don't you think so? In addition, the reason why AI and other Indian airlines which have struggled to capture their share of the traffic to/fro the subcontinent outside of Asia (and the Middle East) is attributed to its lacking the long-haul fleet. On the routes that Air India and Vistara currently operate (since these are the main airlines which operate flights connecting India to...
@Tim Dunn - Manipulating data to make a point seems pointless, don't you think so? In addition, the reason why AI and other Indian airlines which have struggled to capture their share of the traffic to/fro the subcontinent outside of Asia (and the Middle East) is attributed to its lacking the long-haul fleet. On the routes that Air India and Vistara currently operate (since these are the main airlines which operate flights connecting India to outside Asia), their load capacities are full. Therefore, it's a logical deduction that with the addition of long-haul aircraft such as the 787, 350, and the 777, traffic will naturally shift to these direct routes.
@Lucky - what do you make of the change made to the order mix between the -900 and -1000, which you reflected in your article? Makes you wonder if this is a range thing to put some of the farther US routes well within range but can’t really tell.