Mumbai: Disinvestment-bound flag carrier
Air India has taken delivery of its 23rd and the last Boeing
777 plane which can be used in ultra-long haul routes, and
thus also completing its 68 aircraft orders placed with the US
plane-maker more than a decade ago.
The last B777-300 ER, which can carry almost 300
passengers and bearing registration number VT-ALX, landed at
the Indira Gandhi international airport in the Capital
yesterday, an airline source said.
Air India took the delivery of the last 777 aircraft
from the Seattle facility of Boeing on Thursday and it was
scheduled to arrive in New Delhi on Friday, the source added.
"But as the pilot who was to ferry the aircraft
suffered a cardiac attack on board Air India's New Delhi-San
Francisco flight (on which he was the co-pilot), the aircraft
arrived with a one-day delay," the source said.
An Air India spokesperson confirmed the induction of
the last and the 23rd 777s from the 68 orders it had placed
with Boeing in 2006.
On March 5, Air India flight AI 173 from New Delhi to
San Francisco carrying 215 passengers was diverted to the
airport in Sapporo, which is the capital city of the northern
Japanese island of Hokkaido, due to a medical emergency.
As part of its fleet upgradation and expansion plans,
Air India had in 2006 placed orders with Boeing for 68
aircraft --27 Dreamliners, 15 B777-300ERs, eight B777-200 LRs
and 18 B-737-800s.
Of these 50 planes were for Air India and remaining 18
(B737s) for its international budget arm Air India Express.
The national carrier had earlier inducted all but
three 777-300 ERs.
Following the downturn in the global aviation sector,
the delivery of three B777-300 ERs was postponed in 2010 as
there was no "cancellation" clause in the original purchase
agreement with Boeing.
Then, in September 2015, the carrier decided to take
delivery of the remaining three planes as per the 2006
purchase agreement.
The national carrier also decided to retain only one
of these three planes with it and replace its two year-old
jumbo jets B747-400s, which are currently used to ferry VVIPs
(the president, vice-president and the prime minister,) with
the remaining new B777s, which have already been delivered to
the carrier in the past two months.
PTI
