Gurugram: Air India has taken a hit in travel demand to the US due to various factors, including airspace curbs, but the situation is transitory, and the airline is very confident about the market's long-term prospects, its chief Campbell Wilson said on Monday.North America is a key international segment for the Tata Group-owned Air India, which is working on revamping its legacy fleet that includes Boeing 777 planes.
To a query on whether travel demand to the US has been impacted, the airline's CEO and MD replied in the affirmative.There are many factors at play, including airspace constraints, additional flying time, and refuelling stock needed at some place. There are also visa issues that cause a little bit of trepidation amongst people travelling to or from the US, Wilson said at a briefing.
Air India operates services to six points in North America -- Newark, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Vancouver and Toronto.It has 51 weekly flights to North America in one direction. They are operated with Boeing 777s and Airbus A350s.Wilson said that he thinks the situation related to US travel demand is "transitory"."We're still very confident in the long-term prospects of the market. As I say, we've got alternative opportunities to deploy these aircraft. So, we'll just continue to be agile," he added.
While talking about pilots, the Air India chief said the airline has offered a choice to some pilots to temporarily take a contract wherein they fly less per month and in large part, that is for the wide-body Boeing 777 fleet.The airline will have lesser number of Boeing 777 planes in 2026, as some of the leased ones are being returned and some of the such owned aircraft are being retired. Currently, the carrier has 22 Boeing 777 aircraft.
"We are shrinking that (Boeing 777) fleet because we've got to return aircraft to lessors, we've got a lot of (Boeing) 787s and (Airbus) 350s coming in. It's just the natural flux of converting from one aircraft fleet to another aircraft fleet...the flexi contracts have been offered across fleets... the offer is open, and the acceptance of requests is subject to company needs. There are some fleets on which the imbalance is more than others," he said.
In response to a query on whether he supports the idea of having a six-month or one-year notice period for pilots, Wilson said it takes a long time to train a pilot.While mentioning that India has punched the lowest weight in terms of global aviation, he said the efforts are to put the country in its rightful place in the global aviation environment. "Anything from a policy perspective that can facilitate this, I think, is in the national interest."
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