Air India sees ‘massive’ opportunity to grow home market
Air India CEO Campbell Wilson has said there is a “massive” opportunity for the carrier to expand its presence within the Indian subcontinent.
Speaking at the Airline Leaders Summit, Wilson said with a 1.3billion population, India was a “grossly underserved” market.
“The opportunity is massive, the population is massive,” he said. “India is becoming a central point in the global supply chain. There is plenty of opportunity.”
Wilson said that India should strive to benefit from the economic riches that the booming demand will bring. Currently, much of the Europe-India traffic is picked up by the large Middle Eastern carriers, via the UAE and Qatar.
“The opportunity is for India to build an aviation hub in India,“ Wilson said. “It is right that India captures the economic benefit [of that growth].”
However, Wilson added that while there were reasons to be optimistic about the state of the industry, particularly within the domestic Indian segment, international traffic was “moderating”.
Last year Air India unveiled its new brand identity and aircraft livery that will be rolled out on its Airbus A350 aircraft.
Starting on 1 September the flagship aircraft will operate twice daily on the Delhi-London route, accounting for 14 of the airline’s 17 weekly flights, and will replace the Boeing 777-300ER and Boeing 787-8 currently deployed.
As a result of the change, an additional 336 seats will be available on the Delhi-London Heathrow route each week.
With the deployment of the A350-900 to London Heathrow in September, Air India will have upgraded 90% of all its flights to London Heathrow.
From April 2024, Air India started deploying its recently inducted Boeing 777-300ERs with elevated cabin interiors on all flights across its Mumbai-London Heathrow route to provide upgraded cabin interiors and in-flight entertainment systems, while bringing first class back on the Heathrow-Mumbai route.
Air India will introduce its Premium Economy class for the first time on the Delhi-Heathrow route with A350-900.
