AI to rejig seating, slash luxuries to save R500 crore

New Delhi: State-owned Air India is planning to replace business class seats with economy class seats on domestic routes and curtail five-star accommodation for contractual cabin crew and engineers, in an attempt to reduce losses by around R500 crore this fiscal. The ailing flagship carrier had R21,000 crore accumulated losses and R40,000 crore debt as of July, 2011.
Out of Air India’s 135 aircraft, 104 are narrow-bodied planes like Airbus A320s and Airbus A319s, servicing domestic and short-haul international routes. The business class on each A320 with 20 seats is proposed to be converted to economy, which will expand capacity.
Earlier, Jet Airways, India’s largest private airline, had adopted the same strategy, expanding capacity by reconfiguring some of its aircraft.
03/10/11 Nirbhay Kumar/Financial Express

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Categories: Air India Oct 2011