Air India Express owned by Tata Sons might now see a new addition of four Boeing 737 airplanes in its fleet. At present, the popular airline has almost 24 aircrafts in its fleet. It lost one of its planes in the Kozhikode crash in August 2020. The new aircrafts are expected to be added by the end of 2022 to meet the increase in demand.
As the covid restrictions are being eased, the aviation industry is now picking up its original pace and more passengers are opting to fly. In the opinion of the airlines, dry leasing is a possible option to improve the capacity for a short duration.
According to a source, the demand for international travel has bounced back after most of the covid-restrictions were removed for travel. The number of passengers on aircrafts is good and all routes are doing well. Although there are a few seasonal variations, these are being resolved.
Very soon, Air India might take four aircrafts on dry lease in order to increase the capacity for the time being. The new planes will also be used to improvise the frequency on a few routes.
New routes cannot be started with just four additional aircrafts and so these planes will only be utilized to increase the frequency and to consolidate the existing routes.
Currently, Air India Express operates to 11 domestic and 13 international airports. It has more than 100 flights flying every day to various destinations. And the inclusion of four new aircrafts will increase the fleet to 28 airplanes altogether.
The source added that in the past, the disinvestment process had hampered the growth of the airline. Now as the competition is growing rapidly, the airline has to keep up with the other competitors too.
It is said that the airline had made a business plan in 2018 and had envisioned it to own 50 aircrafts by 2025 as the air passenger traffic was experiencing a boom at that time.
Reportedly, Air India Express is hiring both cabin crew and cockpit crew, which indicates the possibility of inclusion of more aircrafts. A cabin crew walk-in interview was conducted at Calicut on Tuesday, i.e, 28th June, while one round of walk-in interviews at Delhi and Mumbai have already been completed.
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