Tata-owned Air India rejigs 250-aircraft order with Airbus

Tata group-owned Air India has rejigged the 250-aircraft order it placed with Airbus last year. An Air India spokesperson said that they exercise contractual flexibilities if required. 

Air India had placed an order for 250 aircraft with Airbus, comprising 210 narrowbody A320 family including 140 A320neo and 70 A321neo aircraft. It has now changed the order to 140 A321neo and 70 A320neo aircraft. The remaining 40 widebody A1350s included six A350-900 and 34 A350-1000s. According to a report in news agency PTI, the carrier has tweaked the widebody order to 20 A350-900s and 20 A350-1000s. 

An Air India spokesperson said, "We regularly review our orderbook based on business requirements and opportunities, and exercise contractual flexibilities as appropriate,” while Airbus said that it is up to their customers to disclose their strategy. 

Tata Group that took control of Air India in January 2022 had placed orders for 470 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing at $70 billion earlier this year. Its Boeing aircraft order for 220 aircraft comprised 190 Boeing 737MAX narrowbody planes, 20 Boeing 787 Dreamliners and 10 Boeing 777X.

The Tata Group in October welcomed a new Airbus A320neo to its fleet. It had, before that in August, revealed its new logo where it retained the original red and white colours and added a dash of purple and gold. The new logo was named ‘The Vista’.

Air India worked on the new logo for as long as 15 months, and spent $400 million refurbishing its entire fleet to incorporate the new logo. The new logo is inspired by the iconic window shape that was used by Air India earlier. The airline has dubbed it the ‘Window of Opportunities’. 

(With PTI inputs)

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