Ticket size of Air India's record order for almost 500 Airbus, Boeing jets could be roughly $110 bn: Mark Martin

Tata Group-owned Air India unveiled deals on Tuesday for a record 470 jets from Airbus and Boeing, whose ticket size has been pegged at roughly $110 billion by Mark Martin, founder and CEO, Martin Consulting. 

Speaking to Business Today TV, Martin said: "The order in terms of a ticket size is roughly about $110 billion but the bigger challenge I see is for Tatas to upgrade migrate and and structure their airline to handling such a complex fleet. The A350 is a generation five plus aircraft and to bring in such advanced technology into India would need an entire shake up and overhaul ofthe way Air India has been functioning so far, which includes skills, processes, technology, IT, 
innovation, software systems, integrated data management. Bringing in every element of technology to migrate and make Tata formidable and aligned to handle the new fleet."

The provisional deals include 220 planes from Boeing and 250 from Airbus and eclipse previous records for a single airline as Air India vies with IndiGo to serve what will soon be the world's largest population.

The Airbus order includes 210 A320neo narrowbody planes and 40 A350 widebody aircraft, which Air India will use to fly "ultra-long routes", Tata Chairman N Chandrasekaran said. Boeing will supply 190 737 MAX, 20 of its 787 Dreamliners and 10 mini-jumbo 777X.

Martin said that despite the mega deals by Air India, India's fleet size is still lagging behind China. 

"The total number of aircraft, at least commercial airline aircraft, in India is between 800 and 900. India has been
adding aircraft on wet leaves, which one really cannot count as our own homegrown fleet because they don't belong to our country. Given our population of 1.4 billion and the 50 million global diaspora, I'd probably peg the effective number of vectors that India should have has to be between 3,500 to 5,000 aircraft. Today, China has a fleet size of 4,500 aircraft. So, India is clearly lagging behind," said Martin. 

Martin also spoke about the comforts these aircraft would offer. 

"Travelers flying on A350 would be delightfully surprised and enthused with an aircraft that is ridiculously quiet. The aircraft has much lower cabin altitude, which means the pressurisation is very good and you arrive less tired, less fatigued, more refreshed. It'll have wonderful in-flight entertainment system and comfortable seats that would take care
of your back with proper lumbar support. Air India is also expected to have onboard bars and cafes and sort of a lounge
in the same manner they had back in the 70s, which actually started a whole revolution in the world with more comfortable washrooms. Wider and more efficient galleys so that passengers can have at least a proper two- or three-meal service in addition to faster gate turns, improved reliability, very low delays. With these aircraft one will truly enjoy air travel the way it's meant to be," he said.