Will Dreamliner give wings to Air India?

Air India’s first Dreamliner aircraft touched down at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Airport today.  

 

This is the first of the 27 256-seater aircraft ordered by the state-run airline. 

 

The aircraft has 18 full-flat business class seats with flat-bed recline, and 238 economy class seats. The carrier will take delivery of two more Dreamliners in the next few weeks.

 

The deal with Boeing for the aircraft went through considerable turbulence.  

 

Air India was initially supposed to get delivery of the aircraft between September 2008 and October 2011. However, due to design and production delays at Boeing, the delivery could not be made on time.

 

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Friday approved the compensation package for the delayed delivery of the aircraft.

 

The issue relating to compensation for failure to meet performance guarantees has been delinked from the delay compensation settlement agreement, and shall be negotiated separately by an empowered group of officers after actual evaluation of the performance of the delivered/inducted aircraft.

 

The Ministry of Law and Justice will examine and endorse the enabling legal provisions/aspects of the negotiations.

 

Air India was to be the first non-Japanese carrier to take possession of the long-haul plane, whose carbon-composite construction makes it more fuel-efficient than earlier models.

 

The state-run airline will be allowed to take delivery of 27 Boeing 787, or the Dreamliner, after signing a ‘delay compensation settlement agreement’. 

After its merger with Indian Airlines, Air India has been mired by problems – mounting losses, employee discontent, and high fuel costs.

 

With these new aircraft, Air India, which intends to get 14 of them by March next year, will launch flights on several long-haul international sectors, including new services to Australia, later this year. For the next few weeks, the Dreamliner will be operated in the domestic sectors, including Delhi-Mumbai, to enable the pilots and crew get accustomed to its landings and take-offs.