Air India plans to utilise the newly inducted Boeing 787 aircraft, which is India’s first, to operate regular flights between Delhi and Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata.
The first of the 27 Boeing 787 aircraft is scheduled to arrive in Delhi on Saturday evening. The aircraft is likely to be formally inducted into commercial operations only after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has formally viewed the aircraft.
Incidentally the last time Air India inducted a new aircraft, a Boeing 777 in 2007, the Prime Minister had visited the airport and also viewed the aircraft.
“The Boeing 787 will be operated in one of the existing commercial flights that are being operated. The airline may also operate the aircraft between India and Dubai with the first long haul operations with the Boeing 787 being to Australia sometime later this year,” sources said.
At the moment it is not clear when the first commercial flight with the new aircraft will take place. Generally, after an aircraft arrives in India it has to be registered with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation before it can take to the skies. The registration process takes a few day.
The aircraft is also likely to be deployed on some of the existing routes in Europe to which the airline currently operates.
The airline hopes to receive four to five aircraft by December and have a fleet of eight aircraft by the end of 2012-13.