Air India's engineering wing certifies 60 Airbus 320 planes as operational

NEW DELHI: The engineering wing of Air India has certified 60 Airbus planes from its fleet of 66 as operational, surpassing the national carrier's target and giving a boost to its effort to increase on-time performance.

At a meeting called by aviation secretary RN Choubey last month, Air India's chairman and managing director Ashwani Lohani had said the airline would soon be flying 58 of the 66 Airbus 320 aircraft it has in its fleet. AI was then flying only 54 of these planes.

"On Sunday, 60 of our Airbus fleet were available for operations. This is the first time in many years that we have got so many of our aircraft operational," a senior Air India executive, who did not wish to be named, said.

The executive said that making available 60 aircraft will help increase on-time performance. "Availability of 60 aircraft is better than the target set by the CMD," he said.

With the 60 Airbus aircraft and 25 more (15 Airbus 320 and 11 ATRs) that the airline hopes to add, the national carrier plans to expand its network to smaller cities in the country.

Meanwhile, Air India's engineering subsidiary is also seeing business growth after the announcement of the new civil aviation policy which proposes waiver of service and value-added tax for the maintenance repair and overhaul sector. "If these tax incentives are implemented, the servicing cost of an aircraft in India will get about 30 per cent cheaper than now and would make us as competitive as our peers in Colombo or Singapore," said an employee of Air India Engineering Services Ltd, a subsidiary of Air India.

Air India