Air India to reintroduce free meals in economy class

The New Year will bring some cheer for passengers flying Air India. Come January, the airline will restart providing free meals for economy class passengers on flights of up to one hour.

The airline had decided to withdraw serving meals to flyers on flights which were up to one hour long in 2012 as a part of its cost cutting exercise. This decision is now being reviewed for various reasons including the fact that the airline has joined Star Alliance and so there has been a substantial increase in the number of international passengers flying on domestic sectors using the hub and spoke model which requires passengers to wait for long hours in the transit area before taking their connecting flight. The airline joined the 27-member global airline club in June.

With passenger traffic on its domestic routes increasing in the on-going holiday season, the airline has decided to augment capacity by inducting one Boeing 747, one Boeing 777 200 Long Range and one Boeing 777-300 Extended Range aircraft.

Generally the airline operates the Airbus 320 family of aircraft on domestic routes which can carry between 122 to 172 passengers on a single flight.

A Boeing 747 can carry 423 passengers, a B 777-200 LR can carry 238 passengers on every flight and a Boeing 777-300 ER can carry 342 passengers.

The airline also plans to use one more Boeing 787 aircraft which can carry 256 passengers on every flight.

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