Air India ‘bullish’ on long-haul worldwide routes

Air India Group, which completes three years of privatisation this month, has recorded the quickest progress in passengers on its far-flung worldwide locations such because the U.S., Europe and Australia.

The airline’s passenger share on routes to North America, Europe, U.Okay., Australia, Far East Asia and Africa stood at 16% on the time the Tata Group took over the reins of the airline from the federal government in January 2022. This share has risen to 21% of the whole market share, the place it’s the solely Indian participant to supply continuous connectivity since Jet Airways shut down in 2019.

“We’re extraordinarily bullish within the long-haul market,” remarked the airline’s Chief Business Officer Nipun Aggarwal throughout a press interplay final week.

Indian airways take pleasure in solely 21% share of worldwide passengers, whereas there’s room to develop upto 50%, he added.

Air India’s give attention to long-haul markets is complemented by its efforts to develop visitors on metro to metro routes domestically, the place the Group is the second greatest with a 30% market share. This supplies it with a move of home passengers to its hubs in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru to fill its seats on worldwide flights, the place its low-cost arm Air India Specific ferries passengers from non-metros.

Lengthy-haul routes are a serious income driver, contributing $16 billion—practically half of $34 billion income in FY 2024—regardless of accounting for simply 11.7% of passengers.

To additional strengthen this section, Air India plans to seize worldwide visitors from India presently routed by means of overseas hubs like Dubai and Singapore, together with drawing foreigners from SAARC and South East Asin to a serious airport in India to connect with a 3rd worldwide vacation spot. The airline goals to double international-to-international transit passengers from 10% to twenty% in two to a few years.

Air India’s fleet enlargement helps these ambitions, with 11 leased Boeing 777s, six Airbus A350s, and Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners from Vistara now working on key routes like New York, San Francisco, and Frankfurt. Its legacy fleet of 40 widebody plane will endure retrofitting in late 2025, including 50% extra premium seats to draw high-paying passengers.

The airline can also be set to introduce First Class cabins on its Airbus A350-1000s. The primary new Boeing 787-9 out of the 570 new planes ordered by the airline is predicted in late 2025, following the addition of 41 planes since 2023.