Mumbai/New Delhi: National carrier Air India is planning to remove first-class seats from its international flights to cut losses, making a move that has long been discouraged by government officials who travel on this class, despite its high costs and low occupancies.
Air India currently offers first class in its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, which it mainly operate on its American routes to Newark, Chicago and routes like Singapore, Jeddah, etc.
The airline has 12 of these planes with four first-class seats each.
"Of the four seats, on an average, only one is occupied, which is around 25% load factor. Usually, these are government officials.The problem we face is that even if there is one person in first class, we have to carry supplies for all four first-class passengers," said the senior official at the airline.
11/02/14 Anirban Chowdhury & Debabrata Das/Economic Times
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Air India currently offers first class in its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, which it mainly operate on its American routes to Newark, Chicago and routes like Singapore, Jeddah, etc.
The airline has 12 of these planes with four first-class seats each.
"Of the four seats, on an average, only one is occupied, which is around 25% load factor. Usually, these are government officials.The problem we face is that even if there is one person in first class, we have to carry supplies for all four first-class passengers," said the senior official at the airline.
11/02/14 Anirban Chowdhury & Debabrata Das/Economic Times
