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Air India plans to lease 19 Airbus A-320 aircraft, which will be able to fly 180 passengers in an all-economy configuration.
The proposal to lease the aircraft, which will replace the same number of A-320 aircraft being phased out, was approved at the airline’s board meeting here on Tuesday.
The aircraft being phased out were acquired as part of an order placed by Indian Airlines in 1989; 14 of the A-320s being phased out are owned by Air India, while five are leased.
While the owned aircraft will be sold, the leased ones will be returned after the agreements lapse.
The induction of the leased capacity, which is expected to begin in the third quarter of this fiscal, will see an increase in seats being offered by the airline. Each of the aircraft being phased out offers seats ranging from 144 to 168.
The new aircraft will seat 180 passengers and help the airline fight competition from low-cost airlines that fly passengers in an all-economy class configuration.
Boeing 787
The airline plans to restart operations of the Boeing 787 soon, flying it on domestic routes in about a week and on international operations within two weeks, the board was informed.
Air India, like many global airlines, will receive compensation for the grounding of the 787s, or Dreamliners as they are better known.
Sources indicated that the compensation would be decided after calculating the revenue loss to the airline based on a formula that calculates how much average revenue the airline would have earned had the aircraft been in service.
Air India grounded the six 787s on January 17. Earlier, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh had indicated that Air India was incurring a loss of Rs 20 crore a week.
While Air India has not mentioned how much compensation it is likely to receive from Boeing for the grounding, news reports quote Qatar Airways as saying it will receive compensation from Boeing for $200 million in lost revenues.
Qatar Airways has five Boeing 787 aircraft while Air India has six Dreamliners in its fleet.
Meanwhile, Air India has informed travel agents that the decision to start charging passengers for checked-in bags of over 15 kg would apply on tickets sold after May 13.
>ashwini.phadnis@thehindu.co.in
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