Air India never likes to make life easy for itself it seems, with pilot strikes here and there, odd rostering and the inability to join an alliance after many attempts.
It seems rostering is back to the fore with Air India wanting to deploy a 787 on the London to Mumbai run in August according to the BBC.
The path to the 787 has not been easy for Air India. They were due to the be the second carrier to take on the brand new Boeing plane, with compensation issues requiring to be sorted between Boeing and AI on the late delivery of the planes, and then pilot strike action over flight training of the new plane.
The airline has sacked 100 pilots since the start of the strike, and is hiring pilots to replace them to crew the 787’s.
The current plan according to India’s Civil Aviation minister Ajit Singh:
- Air India will now take delivery of three 787-8 aircraft this month,
- Initial operations to be conducted on domestic routes,
- An August launch of the London – Mumbai route, with an Australian route to follow (Melbourne was looking like the initial candidate).
The Air India 787’s are the baseline 787-8 model, powered be GEnx-1B engines, configured in a Business Class and Economy Class configuration (Live from a Lounge had an exclusive look behind the scenes), with a squished 3-3-3 seating configuration down the back.
And that reminds me talking about seats – How do you like your 777 to be configured down the back? The poll is still live at http://economyclassandbeyond.boardingarea.com/2012/06/03/poll-how-do-you-like-your-boeing-777-seating-to-be-served/, and I’d love your thoughts on how to be crammed down the back of a plane.
I’d take this announcement with a boatload of salt. Air India’s 787s are going to be based in Delhi, so Mumbai-London seems unlikely.
The Australian routing will be DEL-(BLR)-SYD-MEL, or DEL-(BLR)-MEL-SYD. Air India is also considering alternating the 2 routings, or doing a triangular DEL-(BLR)-SYD-MEL-(BLR)-DEL type routing.
I’m inclined to agree sadly – mainly due to the government interference that happens when AI is near rather than logic.
Putting a 787 on LHR-BOM run is a bit mad as the 787 isn’t designed for that route (787 = thin and long), which can easily fill a 777 (or a 747 like it did in the past).
Still, we’ll see. Knowing AI – madness is entirely possible.
I would disagree. Everything is an expectation with a non-professional organisation such as AI. Till they don’t fly the plane for the first time, don’t even expect them to have accepted the delivery….
No, if a 787 gets put on LHR-BOM, then it’s due to government interference.
The guys at network planning who I was chatting with last week were saying DEL-FRA was going to be in the place of what is now announced as BOM-LHR.
That said, putting a 787 on BOM-LHR would make sense for the period they are considering – it’s just that DEL-FRA makes more sense and is what network planning is actually suggesting.
The 787 will be put on Australia (long and thin) routes once there are enough in operation to sustain daily service. Until then, it will serve Europe. LHR and FRA especially are very overserved from India, which is putting downwards pressure on yields. The last thing AI needs to do now is put 747s back on those routes – it’ll cause them to bleed even more money.
LHR and FRA make sense since there is substantial breathing space if things go wrong, be it with the aircraft the crew etc. Pax can be rebooked, crew and parts flown in, plus FRA already has NH operating a 787 so line maint is available from LH technik who is doing all for NH 787s worldwide.
Yeah, the guys at network planning were mentioning how LH Technik would be very helpful in contingency planning, and that was one of the major reasons that they were pushing DEL-FRA.
But if gov’t wants to go for “prestige” and fly to LHR, I guess they have little choice. More likely, gov’t will proudly announce the prestige route and then network planning will load DEL-FRA anyway. 😀
He he.. Probaly a few flights to take the olympic team and a few hundred sports officials to LHR this summer and then FRA in regular service.
praful patel cancelled the catering with taj and oberois. AI paid 230 crores penalty for doing that. the contract now is with a company that has prafuls daughter as ceo. now the best thing on airindia is disappeared as well. that was great food. i wonder if the pilots are even properly trained to fly the 787s. it would be quite interesting to see brand new planes with ancient stewardesses.bless pawar and praful. ssanjiv
germans are nuts too. lufthansa should have taken india into star alliance. noe indian govt is being vindictive. they wouldnt allow lufthansa to fly the A 380 into delhi.the primeminister keeps a few planes waiting for himself. why cant he fly a regular service like Lee kwan yiew and others. ajit singh cant even speak properly, even as a praful and pawars puppet.
i just cant believe how thick skinned our ministers are.they know that the people of india know whats going on at airlindia but they couldnt care less. well done manmohan singhji.