Aiming To Be The Next Emirates, Air India Makes Record Jet Buy
NDTV
Today the entire country has only about 700 aircraft -fewer than United Airlines Holdings Inc. alone - and just 50 widebody jets to transport its increasingly mobile population.
India reached a milestone at the end of last year when it overtook China as the world's most populous nation. But that explosive growth is hardly reflected in the size of its commercial aviation fleet.
Today the entire country has only about 700 aircraft -fewer than United Airlines Holdings Inc. alone - and just 50 widebody jets to transport its increasingly mobile 1.41 billion people.
Chinese carriers, by contrast, operate about 480 twin-aisle aircraft, and Emirates, whose base in Dubai has a fraction of the population of Mumbai, boasts a widebody fleet of 260 jetliners, according to figures from Cirium, which aggregates aviation data.
Now, Air India is making an expensive push to renew its fleet and expand its global presence. One year after conglomerate Tata Group bought the airline from the government for $2.2 billion, Air India on Feb. 14 announced an order of 470 aircraft, potentially marking the biggest deal in commercial aviation history with a list price value likely exceeding $60 billion.
