The Hindu Business Line : Air India sets up internal panel

New Delhi April 25 Air India has set up an internal committee to study whether the airline should look at purchasing more aircraft, the airline Chairman and Managing Director, Mr V. Thulasidas said on Wednesday.

"The committee will examine if there is need for acquiring more passenger and cargo aircraft as the market is growing rapidly. We do not want a repeat of the past when we did not get aircraft for several years or see the airline slide into anymore problems," Mr Thulasidas said on the sidelines of the India-US Aviation Summit.

The committee has been set up even as the first of the 50 wide body aircraft ordered by the airline - a Boeing 777-200 Long Range — is expected to join the fleet in June this year. The new aircraft is to be used to operate non-stop services between Mumbai and New York.

"We would like to have enough aircraft so that the airline can offer a daily non-stop service rather. Given the superior level of comfort that the service will provide, we feel that there is merit in acquiring more aircraft," Mr Thulasidas said.

Asked about the spate of accidents that Air India aircraft have been involved in during the past few weeks, the Air India CMD said that this was largely on account of the old age of the fleet. "The fleet of Air India Express is young and there have been no complaints about their flights.

The last purchased aircraft joined the Air India fleet in 1996, since then the airline has been depending on leased aircraft to meet growing passenger demand. There is nothing wrong in the airline engineering department and our aircraft are safe to fly," the AI CMD said.

Asked about the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility being set up with Boeing, Mr Thulasidas said that the two partners were proposing to rope in another partner for the project. "Currently, the term and conditions for the MRO are being negotiated with Boeing. A few rounds of discussions have been held already. The MRO will basically be for Boeing aircraft only," the CMD said.