By the end of 2028, Air India Express will have 180 aircraft in its fleet: Alok Singh, CEO

By the end of 2028, Air India Express will have 180 aircraft in its fleet: Alok Singh, CEO

In 2024, three new aircraft would be delivered to Air India Express each month and an extra aircraft every other month, according to Singh, who spoke with Moneycontrol.

By the end of 2028, Air India Express, the low-cost airline operated by the Tata Group, intends to grow from its present fleet of 64 aircraft to 180, according to managing director Alok Singh.

"Air India Express will take arrival of three new aircraft every month in 2024 along with two additional aircraft each month thereafter as well as our five-year plan is to achieve a fleet size of around 180 flights by the end of 2028," Singh said. informed Moneycontrol. In all, 42 aircraft will be delivered to the airline by 2024.

According to Singh, Air India Express began operating nine new aircraft per month starting in October 2023. He added, at present, the Air India Group has not made the ultimate choice on the number of Airbus A320neo, Airbus A321neo as well as Boeing 737 MAX narrow-body aircraft that would be allocated between Air India and Air India Express.

Singh said that the airlines within the Tata group would choose fleet size and aircraft delivery depending on needs because of the length of the schedules for both Airbus and Boeing aircraft.

fleet of convertibles

According to him, Air India Express would operate a different fleet of narrow-body Boeing 737 MAX, Airbus A320neo, and Airbus A321neo aircraft.

"The fleet is subject to modification. An aircraft's type may be modified. We may choose to fly a certain kind of aircraft today, or we can choose to operate an other model. That is what we desire—flexibility. Sub-optimities are undoubtedly possible when using that model and many fleet types, according to Singh. However, as you become bigger, the advantages of resemblance tend to fade."

According to him, Air India Express does not currently have any intentions to fly wide-body aircraft, and Air India will get all wide-body aircraft supplied as part of Air India's massive purchase of 470 aircraft.

By the end of 2028, Air India Express also intends to raise its market share from the present 7% to 15% of the domestic Indian market.

"We want to grow our domestic market share over the next five years, and we plan to increase 15 percent eight times." This is a rather thoughtful and logical number. Our goal is to increase short-haul international traffic from around 11–12% of all traffic to 20% of all traffic. "Our goal is to increase our market share by twofold in both categories," said Singh.

merging of Air Asia

Within the next three months, Air India Express and AirAsia India will combine, and both airlines will begin operating out of their new Gurugram headquarters, which will be located on the same property as Air India.

The Tata Group announced the combination of Air India Express with AirAsia India in November 2022. In order to enable Tata to purchase the airline for Rs 155.65 crore, AirAsia Bhd surrendered its 16.67% ownership interest in it as part of the deal.

Singh said that the amalgamated company would concentrate on linking tier-II cities to international destinations and metros as part of Air India Express's expansion plan. This has historically been Air India Express's unique selling proposition.

"We want to launch a limited number of stations. Our plan is to start a station, expand from there by adding a few more flights, improving connection, and then moving on to another station. And I continue to utilize this example; one instance involves Surat. We began Delhi-Surat ahead of schedule in 2023. Next, we increased the capacity. We linked it to flights from Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, and Dubai. Perhaps we will launch another flight from Delhi at this time. Will increase the number of flights, Singh said.

Moving forward, 50% of the combined company Air India Express's capacity will be used for international operations and 50% for local ones.

"After about two years, the proportion of domestic operations in our capacity is going to rise to about 60-65 per cent," Singh said.

He said that Air India Express wants to return the presently leased aircraft to the lessors at the conclusion of the lease term and has no plans to alter the livery of its current heritage fleet. "Roughly ten Boeing 737-800s and all of our Airbus A320s are leased. After the lease expires, these planes will be returned, Singh said.

At a ceremony held at the Mumbai airport in October 2023, Air India Express presented its new corporate identity and aircraft livery, which has four colors: orange, turquoise, tangerine, and ice blue.

Additionally, Air India Express plans to introduce a customer loyalty program. "It may not be a full-fledged loyalty programme, although will be a basic loyalty program which could additionally include some link with Air India programmes," Singh said.

In January 2022, Tata fully gained control of Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express as part of government-led strategic disinvestment initiative.