Air India Express, the budget airline of Tata Group, likely to add four Boeing 737 planes to its fleet of 24 aircraft by this year-end to meet the increased demand for international travel, citing airline sources privy to the information, the PTI reported on Wednesday.
Aviation is picking up and demand has bounced back after the removal of various pandemic-related curbs, while dry leasing is an option to enhance capacity in the short-term, the sources said.
Currently, Air India Express has 24 Boeing 737 planes in the fleet. It lost one plane in the Kozhikode plane crash in August 2020.
"Demand for international travel has bounced back after the removal of most of the pandemic-related restrictions on travel. Loads (passenger on aircraft) are good and all the routes are doing well. Of course, there are some seasonal variations, which have been factored in," a source said.
“In the short-term, the airline might take four aircraft on dry lease to increase capacity for the interim period,” the source said, adding that the new aircraft will be utilised to enhance frequency on certain routes.
"You can't open new routes with four additional aircraft. These planes will only be used for increasing frequency and consolidation of the existing routes," a source said.
Air India Express currently operates to 11 airports in India and 13 abroad with over 100 daily flights. The induction of four more aircraft will expand the fleet to 28 planes altogether, the source said.
"The airline has not been allowed to grow since a long time. Earlier, its growth was hampered on account of the disinvestment process. The competition is growing every day and we have to keep up with that,” the source said.
Another source said the airline had drawn up a business plan in 2018, in which it had envisioned it to be a 50-aircraft company by 2025 as air passenger traffic was booming at that time.
"But first the government did not give us the go ahead at that time saying that the airline was in its disinvestment plans and then the Covid-19 happened,” said the source.
According to the report, Air India Express is hiring both cockpit crew and the cabin crew, which is an indication itself of induction of more aircraft (in the short-term). The source said, “A walk-in interview for cabin crew has been conducted at Calicut on Tuesday. Also, the airline has already completed one round of walk-in interviews at Delhi, Mumbai, Mangalore, and Calicut.”
“And in the coming weeks, Air India Express plans to conduct similar exercise at Kochi as well as North-east,” he said.