Air India is ordering 40 A350s and 210 aircraft from the A320neo family from Airbus, parent company chairman N Chandrasekaran revealed on Tuesday at an online press conference with Indian Prime Minister Modi and French President Macron. He thus confirms the rumors of recent weeks about a large Airbus order.

Chandrasekaran added that it is a letter of intent and that the details still need to be worked out. Air India already operates 27 A320neos and announced in September that it would lease another 21 A320neos and four A321neos. There will now be 140 A320neos and 70 A321neos, which will be equipped with CFM LEAP-1A engines. The airline also flies with 23 older A320/A321s, but they will almost certainly be phased out.

Air India becomes the first customer in India for the A350. It has ordered 34 A350-1000s and 6 A350-900s. According to engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce, Air India has an option for a further 20 engines for 10 A350-1000s. It is Rolls-Royce's largest order for the Trent XWB and the first in India. Airbus has lobbied hard in recent months to sell the aircraft in the country.

Air India has been pursuing ambitious expansion plans since having been taken over the Tata Group. The airline wants to gain market share in the fast-growing Indian aviation market, where more than a billion people will fly much more often due to rising prosperity in the coming years. Price fighter IndiGo is now the number 1 in the Indian market.

In total, approximately 500 new aircraft will be added to the fleet, making Air India one of the world's largest airlines.

After Air India announced a mega order with Airbus for 250 aircraft earlier in the day, the order with Boeing now follows. The Indian airline is ordering 190 Boeing 737 MAXs, twenty 787-9s and ten 777-9s. The MAX is in versions -8 and -10.

Air India has also taken out options on a further fifty 737 MAXs and twenty 787s, so that the total order can easily be increased from 220 to a maximum of 290 aircraft at a later date.

The deal with Boeing has a list price of $34 billion, according to Air India, but since hefty discounts on new aircraft are common, especially for large numbers, the actual price is likely to be around half that amount.

Air India has ordered a total of 470 aircraft today, that is about half the size of United Airlines which is the largest airline company in the world. The new aircraft should help Air India to gain market share in the fast-growing Indian aviation market, where rising prosperity means that the population is increasingly flying. Incidentally, these are still formal Letters of Intent, which have to be confirmed later.

Since Air India is no longer a state-owned company, but has been taken over by the Tata Group, the company has been working on ambitious expansion plans.

Competitor IndiGo, the current number 1 in the Indian aviation market, also has about 500 aircraft on order. These are almost all aircraft from the Airbus A320neo family. A big difference with this low-cost carrier is that Air India also focuses on long-haul flights with its expansion. Hence the orders for a total of 70 widebody's today.

An overview of the aircraft ordered:
190 Boeing 737 MAXs (exact subdivision per variant still unknown)
140 Airbus A320neos
70 Airbus A321neos
34 Airbus A350-1000s
20 Boeing 787-9s
10 Boeing 777-9s
6 Airbus A350-900s

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* Origin: AVIATION ECHO HQ (2:292/854)