Saturday, April 04, 2015
Air India may opt for longer range Boeing 787 planes
Mumbai: Air India is considering acquisition of five Boeing 787-9 aircraft for flights to US and Canada.
At present Air India uses a mix of narrow body Airbus A320 and wide body Boeing planes on international routes. These include the Boeing 747-400s, Boeing 777s and Boeing 787-8 planes.
The 787-9 variant has a higher range and has 40 extra seats over the 787-8 type plane.
Air India signed a deal with Boeing in 2005 to acquire 68 planes including 27 787 planes. It has inducted 20 Boeing 787 planes and will be taking delivery of its 21st aircraft in June. Air India had taken a bridge loan to finance all the 787 plane inductions and later sold and leased back 11 of the 20 planes.
If the airline sticks to its original plan of inducting Boeing 787-8 planes deliveries would complete by mid-2016 while the 787-9 plane deliveries will commence some time in 2017. A Boeing 787-8 plane has a list price of $ 218 million (about Rs 1350 crore) while 787-9 has list price of $ 257 million (about Rs 1,590 crore).
04/04/15 Annesh Phadnis/Business Standard
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