For consistent, superior flying experience on key routes, Air India to use Vistara planes for flights on 5 metro-to-metro routes | Business News

“Such (metro-to-metro) flights will operate with ‘AI’-prefixed four-digit flight numbers beginning with ‘2’, such as AI2999 from Delhi to Mumbai. Air India will also optimise flight schedules so that flight departures are spread out throughout the day, without reducing frequency. Air India now offers more than 1,000 weekly flights (round trips) on these key routes: 56x daily on Delhi-Mumbai, 36x daily on Delhi-Bengaluru, 24x daily on Delhi-Hyderabad, 22x daily on Mumbai-Bengaluru, and 18x daily on Mumbai-Hyderabad,” Air India said in a release Wednesday.

On October 24, The Indian Express had reported that Air India planned to minimise the overlap between its older aircraft and Vistara planes at the individual route level with major metro-to-metro routes expected to see deployment of the newer aircraft, while Air India’s older aircraft would move to certain other routes. Sources had said that this was being planned in a bid to provide certainty to flyers regarding the quality of product they are likely to experience. The idea is to set the customer’s expectations right and offer a consistent product on that route irrespective of the flight booked.

Although Wednesday’s announcement pertains to domestic flights, such an exercise is also in the works for international network of the expanded Air India on routes where both Air India and Vistara operated, it is learnt. Slots at certain international airports are also being adjusted accordingly.

“The merger of Vistara into Air India has unlocked many new opportunities to improve our customer offering. By combining the strengths of both full-service carriers, we are able to consolidate our best narrowbody offering on routes where there is desire for a high-frequency, full-service product. We will progressively expand the coverage to more routes as Air India inducts new aircraft and completes the retrofit of our legacy narrowbody fleet during 2025,” Air India’s chief executive officer and managing director Campbell Wilson said Wednesday.

Sources indicated that the product differentiation between Vistara aircraft and Air India planes is likely to continue at least till June, when the retrofit programme for Air India’s legacy narrow-body fleet is scheduled to be completed. With new Air India aircraft coming in and older aircraft undergoing refurbishment, Air India will eventually be able to offer a uniform product across its fleet and the planes will largely become fungible.

In its nearly 10 years of operations, Vistara had made a mark for itself as the premier full-service carrier in India that offered a superior product in a market dominated by budget carriers. With the Tata group deciding to merge Vistara into the group’s flagship airline Air India—which the Tatas acquired from the government in January 2022—there were concerns about Vistara’s product and service quality after the merger.

Under government control, Air India was under financial stress, and this reflected in its product and service quality, which was seen as below the standards expected from a full-service carrier. While the now-privatised airline has undertaken a mammoth fleet modernisation and expansion plan, it still has a large number of legacy aircraft that are in a rundown state.

The $400-million upgradation of the airline’s entire narrow-body fleet started in September and is expected to be complete by the middle of next year. As for its legacy wide-body aircraft—Boeing 787s and 777s—Air India expects their retrofit to start early next year.