Air India’s first Airbus 350 aircraft reaches India, passengers will get this facility in the new year
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Air India’s first wide-body A350-900 aircraft has reached India from the France-based Toulouse unit of Europe’s leading aviation company Airbus. According to the statement, the aircraft registered as VT-JRA landed at Indira Gandhi International Airport in the national capital at 1.46 pm. With this, the Tata Group-owned airline has become the first airline in India to have this type of aircraft in its fleet. It said the delivery flight is operated using the special call sign AI350. The airline said this aircraft is the first of 20 Airbus A350-900 orders from Air India. It is scheduled to supply five more aircraft by March 2024. In its now revised 250 aircraft order with Airbus, Air India will take 40 A350 aircraft, of which 20 each will be A350-900 and A350-1000. Also, 140 aircraft will be relatively narrow-body A321neo aircraft and 70 aircraft will be A320neo aircraft.
Campbell Wilson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director (MD), Air India, said that the arrival of the first Airbus A350-900 is in many ways an announcement of the resurgence of the Indian aviation sector on the world stage. The airline has already announced that initially this aircraft will be operated on short haul routes and later it will be deployed for long haul flights. The company said that the new aircraft will start providing commercial service in January next year. Initially operations will be carried out domestically for crew training, followed by long-haul flights to intercontinental destinations.
Airlines can save Rs 1,000 crore annually by flexible use of airspace
Flexibility in use of airspace will save airlines Rs 1,000 crore annually. This helps reduce flight time, fuel use and carbon emissions. In the aviation sector review released on Saturday, the Civil Aviation Ministry also said that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued a record 1,562 commercial pilot licenses till December 18 this year. The ministry said that to address the problem of congestion at airports, additional space has been created by reconfiguring the terminal infrastructure available at various airports to increase capacity at multiple passenger touchpoints. Meanwhile, the ministry said earlier about 40 per cent of the airspace was not available for civil use, leading to aircraft taking longer routes to reach their destinations.
30 percent share is under the control of Air Force
The release said that the Indian Air Force controls 30 percent of the national airspace. Of this, 30 percent has been released as upper airspace under flexible use of airspace. The ministry said that as part of self-reliant India, the Indian Air Force has agreed to leave these parts of the airspace for civilian use, with 129 conditional routes announced. The statement said that this will lead to significant savings in flight time, fuel and reduction in carbon emissions. Airlines will save approximately Rs 1,000 crore per year. The total savings since August, 2020 is Rs 640.7 crore and the total reduction in carbon emissions is 1.37 lakh tonnes. The release said that on November 19 this year, 4,56,910 domestic passengers traveled by airlines in India. This was the highest number of people traveling by air in a single day since the Covid-19 pandemic hit. This is 7.4 percent more than the pre-Covid level.
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