Barely two-and-a-half months into their operations, Air India?s prized Boeing 787 Dreamliners have started showing their worth.
The national carrier?s international flights to routes like Frankfurt and Paris, which were earlier making losses, are now generating cash profit margins of up to R5 lakh per route, said an AI official.
?The Dreamliners have had a very positive impact on operations,? said S Venkat, director, finance, Air India. ?On the domestic routes, we are seeing seat factor of 75-80%. The planes have also helped us turn around our operations on some international routes.?
As per airline sources, Dreamliner operations are providing a fuel cost saving of 20-22% on the routes they are operating on. On sectors like Delhi-London, Delhi-Paris and Delhi-Frankfurt, the airline was previously running losses due to operations of the fuel-guzzling Boeing 777-200LR. However, within two-and-a-half months of the Dreamliner?s operations, the national carrier is now generating a cash profit margin of Rs 4-5 lakh per route.
Deploying more 787s is part of AI?s strategy to make its currently loss-making routes profitable. So far, AI has secured seven planes of a total order of 27. Another seven will be added by end of this fiscal. New routes are also being added using the 787s, a recent one being
Delhi-Amritsar-Birmingham.
The Delhi-Sydney-Melbourne route is scheduled to start from August 29.