Dreamliner to open up new markets for AI
Air India plans to start services between Delhi-birmingham and DelhiSydney/melbourne next month, followed by Delhi-rome/milan in October.
At a recent press conference in New Delhi, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said that, out of six Dreamliners, two aircraft have already been modified for commercial operations and all six planes will be ready for operation by the end of this month. Air India would get another eight Dreamliners by December, he added. This will make the total availability of 14 B-787 Dreamliner aircraft with Air India by this year.
Dreamliners offer roomier cabins, larger electronically dimmable windows, state- of- the- art inflight entertainment system powered by the most sophisticated GEnxt engines. These have remained grounded since January 17 after a fire in the lithium-ion batteries of a parked plane in Boston and a case of forced landing of another B787 for the same reason in Japan. The aircraft is now operating on domestic services between DelhiChennai, Delhi- Bengaluru and Delhi- Kolkata routes besides international operations to London, Frankfurt and Paris. The Minister clarified that before restarting its operation on May 15, 2013, all operational regulatory requirements have been complied with and all pilots have been subjected to the required checks before release for flight duties. Speaking to TravTalk, Rohit Nandan, Air India’s CMD said, “I have personally gone into these aircraft to supervise engineers as they worked on the batteries.”
“The airline is working on evolving a functional hybrid model by adopting the best practices of lowcost carriers, while retaining the core services of a fullservice carrier. The on- going restructuring at Air India has cut loss-making routes to 25 per cent of its network in the fiscal year ending March 2013,” he added. The minister also said that the government has accepted the recommendations of Prof. Dholakia Committee Report on cost cutting in Air India and has sent it to Air India for immediate implementation. The committee has made a total of 47 recommendations. “Air India expects a saving of about ` 500 crore in the next six months by implementing the committee’s recommendations,” said Singh.