Two routes to America, Air India plans utilisation of all six A359s

As all eyes were focused on Farnborough today where amongst other planes is an Air India A350 on static display, Air India announced the deployment of its A350-900s to North America, progressively. The airline will replace the B77Ws with A350 on its flagship AI101/102 Delhi – New York JFK – Delhi route starting November 01, 2024. The airline will also deploy the aircraft on AI105/106 Delhi – Newark – Delhi starting January 02, 2025. The service to Newark is operated five times a week. (Currently operated 4x weekly)

The airline has already announced the deployment of the Airbus A350 to London from Delhi on 14 of its 18 frequencies, beginning September 01, 2024. With this announcement, the airline completes the utilisation of all six airframes of A350-900 which it received progressively from December 2023. These airframes were destined for Aeroflot but the deliveries were held up due to sanctions following the Russia – Ukraine war and were made available to Air India. The A350 started domestic commercial operations from January 22, 2024 and started operating to Dubai from May 01, 2024. 

What does it mean for New York and Newark?

The change in equipment would mean introduction of Premium Economy on these two routes. However, the current B77Ws which service the routes offer 342 seats (4 First, 35 Business and 303 Economy). The shift to A350 would mean a drop of 7.6% as the A350 is configured with 28 Business, 24 Premium Economy and 264 Economy class seats. This translates to a 13% reduction in Economy class seats on offer and a 20% reduction in Business class, with the First class not on offer any more. However, this also signals a massive improvement in passenger experience.

Air India’s A350 aircraft feature 28 private suites in Business class with full-flat beds in a 1-2-1 configuration, and 264 spacious Economy seats arranged in a 3-3-3 configuration. Each suite in Business provides direct aisle access, sliding privacy doors, and a personal wardrobe. All seats across cabins on the A350 come with the latest-generation Panasonic eX3 in-flight entertainment (IFE) system and HD screens that offer more than 2,200 hours of entertainment content from around the world. The A350 flights will also feature the airline’s new signature soft products and award-winning guest enhancements unveiled earlier this year. These include new chinaware, new tableware and glassware, new bedding, and updated amenity kits for Business and Premium Economy guests, exclusively designed by Ferragamo and TUMI, respectively.

Strong focus on US market

The Russia – Ukraine war led to American carriers withdrawing flights from the Indian market as they stopped using the Russian airspace. This saw Delta Air Lines withdraw its flight and United scale down its services. 

Air India has been on the receiving end of its hard product for a while and these changes will see the airline offer a new product on 60% of its flights, as per the airline. However, this new product is not yet standardised with the A350, B77Ls (ex-Delta) and B77Ws (ex-Etihad) being the newer products. Air India currently flies to five points in the United States, namely New York JFK, Newark, Washington DC, Chicago, and San Francisco. The airline operates 51x weekly flights to the United States from India. 

How are the A350s being utilised?

The six A350s are being rotated effectively to London, New York and Newark – all from Delhi. I made an excel chart for the same to see how they are utilised. Typically, software help make such charts,optimise the rotations and help swap aircraft to ensure balancing of Cycles and Hours.

I deep dived into each to try and understand what is working well in these six airframes

1. Two bases: London and the New York metropolitan area remain the two bases for the crew, helping swap if and when needed to avoid disruption. The need for engineering and maintenance also remains restricted and thus takes care of the cost
2. Balance: The aircraft have spent a lot of time doing really short sectors, to help add landings and take-off for the crew. In this, it would have ended up with a few hours but higher cycles. The maintenance programs of aircraft are designed as a mix of Cycles (One landing and take-off) and hours (total flying hours). With a mix of Ultra Long and Long flights, when the aircraft are swapped at regular intervals – it will have a good balance
3. Maintenance Slots: There are two distinct maintenance slots which take care of weekly maintenance, rotation of frames and buffer for planes going technical or delays due to weather. 
4. Delhi based: The domestic flights may have seen the aircraft spend its time in Bengaluru, but when it was time to fly the mission it was meant for, all six planes are back in Delhi – the hub of the airline.

Could this have been any better?

There always are multiple options when it comes to deployment of any aircraft and in this case, change of equipment. The influencing decisions are cost of operation, competition, yields, importance of route, crew, utilisation, airport readiness just to name a few. 

As Vistara is all set to merge with Air India and a legal mandate to complete by March 2025, would the London operations shifting to A350s have been the most optimum solution? Currently Air India operates 17 flights to London Heathrow from Delhi and 14 from Mumbai. Vistara operates seven flights a week to Heathrow from Delhi. This makes it a total of 24 flights from Delhi and 14 from Mumbai, requiring 2 airframes from Mumbai and 3.5 from Delhi, a total of 5.5 with maintenance slots available similar to what it would be post January 2025. London, like New York is a flagship and premium route and all A350 operations would have meant even simpler management of crew and engineering – in my opinion. 

Network Thoughts

There is commendable work which Air India has done when it comes to deployment of the six A350s in its fleet. The next question then is what happens to the aircraft which are being freed up? The airline will free up two B77Ws in September, followed by nearly four more planes (all B77W) when the A350 operations commence to North America. Media reports have indicated a delay in refurbishment, but even if it is to happen soon – it would not be so many planes at a time. 

This clearly indicates the ability to add more flights to North America. A lot of work remains to be done on the integration of Vistara network with Air India, which could see changing timings of Vistara flights to Paris and Frankfurt to not overlap with Air India and have a better hub structure at Delhi. Will the B77Ws add capacity to long term destinations like Frankfurt or Paris? Will the expansion be to Canada or the East coast of America? The answer could now be just weeks away!

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