Loss-making Air India, which has launched into a metamorphosis plan, on Friday mentioned {that a} third of its wide-body fleet can have fashionable seats and inflight leisure techniques by March 2024.

Earlier this yr, the Tata Group-owned airline positioned orders for 470 plane, together with 70 wide-body ones, with Airbus and Boeing.

”By the top of this monetary yr, the six new A350s, along with the 5 leased B772LRs and 9 different B773ERs we’re additionally inducting, will imply that our wide-body fleet can have grown in dimension by 30 per cent inside a yr,” Air India CEO and MD Campbell Wilson mentioned in his weekly message to the workers on Friday.

He additionally mentioned that by March 2024, round a 3rd of the overall wide-body fleet will function fashionable seats and inflight leisure techniques.

”The remainder of the fleet will then begin their full USD 400 million inside refits in order that our onerous product is as much as a persistently excessive normal on each plane,” he added.

There have been complaints about malfunctioning seats and inflight leisure techniques in some wide-body plane, largely working on lengthy and ultra-long haul routes. The airline operates these planes, primarily to the US and Europe.

This week, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued the Letter of Type Acceptance for the airline’s Rolls Royce-powered A350s.

Air India has 50 wide-body plane in its fleet of 124 planes. It has 15 B777-300s, 8 B777-200s and 27 B787-800s, whereas the remainder are narrow-body ones.

Meanwhile, Air India and CFM International have finalised the order for LEAP engines for the provider’s new fleet of 400 narrow-body planes.

The engines will energy 210 Airbus A320/A321 neo and 190 Boeing 737 MAX household plane.

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