Air India to deploy its best narrowbody aircraft on key domestic routes

Air India is all set to deploy its best narrowbody aircraft, the one inherited from Vistara—the A320neos—on the five most important high-demand metro routes in the country starting December 2024. The five key routes are anticipated to be Delhi-Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Mumbai-Hyderabad, Bengaluru. The aircraft will be equipped with business, premium economy, and economy class seats.

By deploying its best aircraft on high-demand routes, Air India is making sure that passengers get to experience the Vistara feel on their routine flights, thus enabling the airline to maintain its passenger base. Experts feel that this is a master stroke by Air India, as combining the strengths of both full-service carriers was the main motive behind the merger.

“The merger of Vistara into Air India has unlocked many new opportunities to improve customer offerings,” says Campbell Wilson.

He further goes on to explain that the consolidation of Air India’s best narrowbody offering on the routes where there is a desire for a high-frequency and full-service product is a part of the plan.Going ahead, the airline will progressively expand the coverage to more routes as Air India inducts new aircraft and completes the retrofit of the legacy narrowbody fleet in 2025.

These 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 the frequency.Air India operates over 1,000 weekly flights (round trips) on metro routes.

They include 56 daily Delhi-Mumbai, 36 Delhi-Bengaluru, 24 Delhi-Hyderabad, 22 Mumbai-Bengaluru, and 18 Mumbai-Hyderabad flights.

Describing the new Air India offering on five metro-to-metro routes, here’s what the passengers can expect:

• Eight seats in business class, each offering 41 inches of pitch, seven inches of recline, a leg rest, and a footrest
• 24 extra legroom seats in a dedicated, upscale premium economy class
• Each premium economy seat to offer 33 inches of pitch and four inches of recline132 comfortable seats in economy with 29 inches of standard pitch in the cabin and three inches of recline

Air India will continue to operate one widebody flight each between Delhi and Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad using its Boeing 777 or Airbus A350 aircraft, which will have ‘AI’-prefixed three-digit flight numbers.

The merger of Air India and Vistara was completed on November 12, 2024.