Air India CEO warns aircraft shortage to last at least four years

New Delhi: Air India CEO Campbell Wilson on Tuesday said the global aircraft shortage hampering airline growth will persist for four to five years as supply snags hobble production at jetmakers Boeing and Airbus.

Speaking at an event organised by travel news website Skift, Wilson said he sees pinch points in the supply of narrowbody jet engines, business and first class seats, and some elements of aircraft fuselages.

Air India is in the midst of an ambitious turnaround strategy two years after Tata Group took control of the airline, but its restructuring efforts have been complicated by jet delivery delays.

These setbacks have forced the airline to operate older jets longer than planned, increasing maintenance costs and slowing its modernization and expansion drive.

When asked about how Air India plans to navigate delays, Wilson told reporters: "There is not a lot we can do. We are victims of circumstance, as is every other airline."

"If you are capacity constrained, you need to be a little bit more ruthless with respect to where you deploy aircraft to mazimise the return," he added. "It means you can't expand to places you would otherwise like to expand."

The competition among airlines to lease aircraft and the different configurations available make leasing aircraft challenging, Wilson added.

In 2023, as a part of the multi-billion-dollar revamp, Air India ordered 470 jets from Airbus and Boeing, including 10 of the U.S. planemaker's much-delayed 777X aircraft and 190 Boeing 737 MAX jets.

Late last year, the airline ordered 100 more Airbus aircraft.

When asked about delivery timelines for 777X, Wilson said, "Who knows?" His comment underlined uncertainty among airlines who have ordered the jet that is considered a successor to Boeing's 777, one of the most commercially successful long-haul airliners.

Last month, Wilson told Reuters Air India was holding off on exercising its outstanding options to buy additional Boeing jets until the planemaker has cleared its backlog. Boeing is recovering from a near two-month crippling worker strike last year. The planemaker cannot produce more than 38 737 MAX aircraft per month because of a cap set by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

Boeing did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.