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Air India Express
Air India Express now has 100 planes in its fleet by inducting another Boeing 737-8 aircraft, which operated its first flight on Bengaluru-Hindon route. In a release on Monday, the airline said it will be operating over 500 daily flights by the end of this month across a fast-expanding network of 54 destinations across India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. From a fleet of 26 Boeing 737 NGs and 28 A320 aircraft in January 2022, when the airline was taken over by the Tata Group, the carrier's has almost doubled its fleet to 100 aircraft, according to the release. The 100th aircraft, featuring 'Chittara' tail art inspired by Karnataka's traditional mural painting, was flagged off by the airline's Managing Director Aloke Singh at Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport. "In just over three years since privatisation, we integrated and merged the LCC (low cost carrier) airlines, while scaling up rapidly with a modern and fuel-efficient fleet, broad basing our domestic network,
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation imposed a financial penalty of Rs 30 lakh in December last year on Air India Express for installing and operating a Boeing aircraft with an external livery without its permission, Parliament was informed on Thursday. In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Minister for State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol said the violations of safety norms by the airlines are monitored by the DGCA and based on the severity of the violation, actions are taken. He also said the DGCA carries out surveillance/audits at regular intervals vide published Annual Surveillance Programme (ASP) on needs basis to ensure that continued compliance is maintained by airlines. Violations to the extant rules and regulations are dealt as per enforcement policy and procedure manual and enforcement actions as deemed fit are taken by DGCA, he added. According to the data shared as part of the written reply, a total of 23 enforcement actions were taken by three directorates unde
Air India will see progress on various key initiatives, including refitting of wide body and narrow body planes, in 2025 as well as tighten practices and processes to ultimately become profitable, the airline's chief Campbell Wilson said on Friday. After taking over the loss-making Air India from the government in January 2022, Tata Group has been working on an ambitious transformation plan to turn around the airline, which recently also placed orders for 100 more aircraft. In his message to the staff on Friday, Wilson said 2024 saw the realisation of some of the most significant milestones, including the completion of the mergers of Air India Express and AirAsia India, and Vistara with Air India that "position us as the fourth largest business, by revenue, in the Tata group". Air India group operates 300 aircraft across both brands, flying over 60 million customers annually to more than 100 destinations in India and around the world. While describing 2024 as a transformative year
Air India Express' inaugural four-hour flight from Surat in Gujarat to Thailand capital Bangkok saw good sales of liquor onboard, with some passengers claiming the stock ran out. The flight, operated with a Boeing 737-8 aircraft on Friday, had 175 passengers and six crew members onboard. The passenger capacity of the plane is 176. Liquor consumption is prohibited in Gujarat. Officials of the budget airline on Sunday said there were brisk sales of alcohol on the flight from Surat to Bangkok and the stock was not exhausted, as claimed by some on social media. Some passengers had taken to social media, saying the airline ran out of liquor. There was sufficient stock of liquor as well as food onboard, the officials added. There was no official statement from the Tata Group-owned Air India Express. According to the officials, generally, a passenger is not served more than 100 ml of liquor during a flight. The airline offers five types of liquor onboard. A 50 ml of Chivas Regal is p
Air India Express, the budget-carrier arm of Air India, is embarking on a significant expansion by increasing its fleet size and introducing new routes, as passenger growth remains robust. The airline, however, has deferred plans to launch direct flights between Kolkata and Dhaka, citing the ongoing political crisis in Bangladesh. "You would recall we had announced our operational plan for Dhaka, which is a new and significant market for us. But because of the situation there, we have deferred those plans," Aloke Singh, Managing Director of Air India Express, said. "As soon as the conditions are right, we will resume those plans," he said. The airline had initially planned to launch the Dhaka services in September with six weekly flights. Despite the deferment, Singh said the airline remains committed to expanding its presence in the eastern sector. He said its international service flights to and from Kathmandu would begin with the summer schedule, starting the end of March ...
Air India Express on Tuesday announced the launch of four new routes from Bhubaneswar as a part of the airline's expansion plan in eastern India. These services will connect the Odisha capital to Jaipur, Lucknow, Kochi and Patna, the airline said in a statement. This expansion reinforces Bhubaneswar's connectivity to key regional and cultural centres across India, it said. The services to Jaipur and Kochi will commence on January 3, 2025, followed by the launch of flights to Lucknow on January 4 and Patna on January 15, the statement said. Bookings are now open. The Bhubaneswar-Jaipur flight will operate four days a week - Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, while the Bhubaneswar-Kochi and Bhubaneswar-Patna flights will operate daily. The Bhubaneswar-Lucknow flights will operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Additionally, the airline showcased Odisha's cultural heritage with its 'Ikat livery', beautifully displayed on one of its newest aircraft, the airline statement
Air India will see most of the air traffic growth coming from domestic and short-haul international operations in 2025 as more narrow-body planes are joining the fleet and legacy wide-body aircraft will be going for retrofit next year, the airline's chief Campbell Wilson said on Thursday. The Tata Group-owned airline, which has embarked on a five-year transformation journey, expects to have a fleet of 400 planes by 2027. Currently, the total fleet strength of Air India Group, including Air India Express, is around 300 aircraft. During a select media briefing, Wilson, who has been at the helm of Air India for more than two years, said the airline group has a domestic market share of around 29 per cent and 55 per cent on the metro to metro routes. On top 120 domestic routes, the market share is about 40 per cent, he said. According to him, the retrofit of legacy wide-body aircraft will start in early 2025. "We had hoped to start retrofit of 787s and 777s by now. Unfortunately, the
Air India Express plans to start reconfiguration of planes having business class seats from April 2025, as the airline focuses on operating narrow-body planes with only economy class seats, according to a senior official. The Tata Group-owned airline that merged AIX Connect with itself on October 1, has rationalised its network and currently has an operational fleet of 90 planes, including over 30 aircraft with dual-class seats. Amid supply chain woes impacting fresh aircraft deliveries, the airline has, so far, inducted 35 white-tail Boeing 737-8 planes. Their count will rise to 50 in the coming months. Many of these white-tail aircraft have varying numbers of business-class seats. Generally, white-tail planes are those that were originally manufactured for a particular airline and later taken by another airline. The senior airline official said it will start reconfiguration of the aircraft having business class from April onwards. The carrier wants to offer only economy class s
Air India Express plans to start reconfiguration of planes having business class seats from April 2025, as the airline focuses on operating narrow-body planes with only economy class seats, according to a senior official. The Tata Group-owned airline that merged AIX Connect with itself on October 1 has rationalised its network and currently has an operational fleet of 90 planes, including over 30 aircraft with dual-class seats. Amid supply chain woes impacting fresh aircraft deliveries, the airline has, so far, inducted 35 white-tail Boeing 737-8 planes. Their count will rise to 50 in the coming months. Many of these white-tail aircraft have varying numbers of business-class seats. Generally, white-tail planes are those that were originally manufactured for a particular airline and later taken by another airline. The senior airline official said it will start reconfiguration of the aircraft having business class from April onwards. The carrier wants to offer only economy class se
Expanding its network and tapping group synergies, Air India Express will focus on connecting smaller cities and towns with metros as well as fly to new overseas destinations, according to senior officials. The airline, which recently completed the merger of AIX Connect with itself, has a fleet of around 90 aircraft and the count is expected to cross 110 by the end of this fiscal. It also aims to fly to a total of 55 destinations by the end of March 2025 and has also rationalised its network as part of Air India Group strategy. Apart from adding domestic routes, the Tata Group-owned airline will start flights to more foreign destinations, including Bangkok and Phuket in Thailand, the officials said. Air India Express Managing Director Aloke Singh said the airline will focus on Tier 2 and 3 cities and towns as they are the growth engines, and the largest chunk of the market is metro to non-metro. "On the regional short haul international network, it will be primarily from Tier 2,
No bomb was found aboard an Air India Express plane which landed in Singapore more than an hour after its scheduled arrival time, the police said on Wednesday. The police said it found no bomb after completing security checks at Changi Airport on the low-cost carrier's aircraft from the Indian city of Madurai. The airline received an e-mail about a bomb on flight AXB684 scheduled to land at Changi Airport in Singapore at 8.50 pm on Tuesday. The flight escorted by two F-15 fighter jets from the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) landed at 10.04 pm. The police said they were informed of the bomb threat at 8.25 pm and completed checks after the plane landed, reported The Straits Times. Investigations are ongoing and action will be taken against those who intentionally caused public alarm, the police said. Flight tracker Flightradar24 showed the plane was circling for about an hour east of Singapore before landing. Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen in a Facebook post said: Two of our
Air India, Air India Express and Vistara are making inflight announcements on Thursday in remembrance of Tata Group patriarch Ratan Tata for whom aviation was especially close to his heart. Tata, 86, who was also Tata Sons Chairman Emeritus, breathed his last on Wednesday night at a Mumbai hospital. Officials on Thursday said the three airlines, part of the Tata Group, will be making announcements in remembrance of Tata in their flights during the day. The demise of Tata also comes at a time when the conglomerate is in the process of completing the consolidation of its airline business -- the integration of Air India Express and AIX Connect was completed on October 1 while the merger of Vistara with Air India is set for November 12. Vistara is a joint venture between the Tata Group and Singapore Airlines. Air India CEO and MD Campbell Wilson told staff that Air Indians especially acknowledge and are grateful for Tata's immense contribution to Indian aviation and to the Tata ...