Well, Campbell, I've had the pleasure of flying on your A350s at least three times in the last year, actually.
Glad to hear it. Thank you.
And it's not just the product, because product is one thing, isn't it? But I don't know if I've flown Air India a lot in the '70s or '80s, but it's the service that truly stands out.
I think that is India's secret sauce, to be honest. It's a naturally warm and hospitable culture. There's no secret that some of the best hotels in the world, whether it be Taj or Oberoi or others, are Indian, and it's the service that really makes them stand out. Anyone can invest in hard product. We are investing in hard product. But the polish on top is the consistency, the warmth, the genuine hospitality of the crew and the people that interact with on the ground. So I think as we bring all the different components of the new Air India together, I'm really excited by the future. I really think we've got a very strong proposition that's already present on our A350s serving London and New York from Delhi, but over the course of 2026 there is a massive expansion in this modern international product, and it's an exciting time.
Well, I mean, to compete with the likes of Emirates, Singapore Airlines where you used to work, Qatar Airways, Turkish, you need to be as good, you need to benchmark against these people, I guess, and aspire to be even better.
Yeah. Well, look, if you get on board the A350, which you have, and I encourage other people to do so, I think you will find that the product stacks up very competitively to any one of those airlines that you name. The added advantage, of course, is that it's a non-stop service from India to New York, London, and eventually anywhere else we fly. We already fly to nearly 50 international destinations. So not just the product and the service, it's the convenience and the time, and the loyalty membership that allows you to redeem your points on a more relevant network to you. I think we're really building towards something that is going to be, and already is in some aspects, globally competitive. When you talk about all the dimensions we discussed earlier today—the size of the market, the growth rate of the market, the size of the diaspora, the fact that so many travelers from India currently go via somewhere else in a very inconvenient fashion—the opportunity to attract those customers back to an Indian carrier with an Indian product, Indian crew, facilitating Indian employment and the whole Indian aviation ecosystem we talked about, I think will be a significant attraction.
Absolutely. I'm talking to Campbell Wilson by the way, who's the chief executive of Air India. How about that? Just in case we didn't know anymore. And I was lucky enough to interview on stage at a fair just over a year ago, learning myself about the Air India transformation journey. The Aviation Club in London you came to speak at as well. In February we came and I interviewed you. I did the peace radiation week, and then of course with the IATA, we were prominent. We did a round table really learning about India, but of course about the Air India story. The Air India story obviously took a turn there with the tragic events of the 12th of June, and I just wanted to give you the opportunity to say what you feel is appropriate at the moment on that tragic time.
Thank you, Mike. This is really the first public engagement that we've done in India since that tragic day. It was absolutely devastating for the people involved, for the families of those involved, for the company, for staff. Since that time, we've been doing absolutely everything we can to support those affected, both families and those on the ground, and also the first responders, and really do whatever we can to ease their journey forward. We've had more than 600 people on the ground in Ahmedabad. We've set up a trust through Tata that provided extra share payments to all of the families of those affected. We've obviously completed that interim compensation of our own and are working through the final compensation. The commitment from both Air India and Tata is to do absolutely all we can for as long as it takes to bring closure to those that have been affected. We're also working with the investigators. We're not involved in the investigation directly; it's run by the government. The interim report indicated that there was nothing wrong with the aircraft, the engines, or the operation of the airline. We obviously, as with everyone else, await the final report, and if there's anything to learn from it, we will absolutely make sure that we do. But for the moment, our focus is on those affected and making sure that we help them in the best way we can.
Thank you, Campbell. On an ongoing basis, has it influenced how you've changed anything that you do internally? Or has it really been a continuation of your business practices, your day-to-day practices?
In the initial phase for the three months following the accident, we took what we termed the safety pause, where we reduced the volume of flying by about 15% internationally, just to ensure that there was time for even more checks than would normally be the case. To recognize the fact that pilots and engineers will be even more cautious than usual, we have deliberately, both voluntarily and from a regulator caution perspective, put in additional checks. That has now progressively gone back to a more normal level of operations. But anything that happens in the industry, whether it's us or others, is a cause for introspection. It is a cause for reviewing practices. As I said, the interim report indicated that there was nothing with aircraft, engines, or practices that required changing. But of course, we're always looking at how we can keep improving, keep getting better, and keep learning.
Right, Campbell, thank you. We appreciate you giving us an update and speaking about what was such a tough time for India, for you, for the team, your colleagues, for the people affected massively. So thank you, and it's good to have you back if I may, that we can talk and you can come out into the public domain. Of course, the business has to run, has to continue. It's a massive undertaking with thousands of people affected directly and indirectly. So you have to continue, and you're in the middle of this transformation plan. What three years into the five, you're into the climb phase, aren't you? That's what you described, right?
We're well into the climb phase. To give a sense of scale, Air India has grown from a little over 100 aircraft to now 300 aircraft as a group. We have about 30,000 staff. We have a flight takeoff roughly every 65 seconds across the group. So it is a significant organization that needs to keep going regardless of whatever challenges come our way. The organization we see today, even though it's significantly larger than it was at the point of privatization, is only going to get bigger because we've got 524 aircraft yet to be delivered in the firm order. All of those will come by around 2031. We've been taking an aircraft about once every six days for the last two years. We will keep taking an aircraft about once every six days for the next three or four years. Most excitingly for us, 2026 sees us start to really ramp up the widebody fleet. We'll be taking a new widebody every six weeks or so for the next two years. In addition, we start seeing the return to service of our legacy widebody fleet, which is going in for an interior refit of completely new seats, completely new inflight entertainment systems, bringing them up to, and in some cases slightly beyond, what you experienced on the A350 flight. So by mid-2027, all of the 787 fleet will have been refurbished completely.
How many aircraft is that?
26, 36. Yes. And then subsequently, from late 2026 through to early 2028, all of the 777 aircraft will be refurbished. That's in addition to the new aircraft coming off the production line every six weeks. So the foundations have been laid. The organization has been restructured. We've onboarded 9,000 new people. We've replatformed 140 IT systems. We've consolidated 63 offices. We've merged four airlines together. We've inducted 100 aircraft. But 2026 is when we truly start seeing, from a customer perspective, the new Air India properly emerge. We're already seeing a little bit of it domestically. We just completed yesterday the refit of legacy narrowbody aircraft. So now we have 104 full-service narrowbody aircraft operating in India and around the region with a very modern interior.
Yeah. And that's so important. It's not a flick. This is one of the not misconceptions, but people think that in some businesses you can overnight change a business. You can flip the product. I've been around in the airline business long enough to know, especially when you get to scale, especially when you involve legacy, you don't have a clean sheet of paper to design your IT system or your system. Especially when you're dealing with widebody aircraft and first and business class products in particular. It's relatively easy to do narrowbody aircraft, and that's why 104 aircraft have essentially been upgraded already. But if I order a widebody aircraft today, with the best intentions, it's going to be delivered in 2032. If I go to the market to get first and business class seats, business class seats would take four years to be installed on the aircraft. If I want to do a new first class seat and design it to the spec, it's the best part of seven years. And so let's just say that again: seven years to spec and design, certify, manufacture, install, and recertify the aircraft with the new seats. That's not the supply chain; that's how long it takes. It has been particularly bad the last few years emerging from COVID, as was said by the previous panel. There was a significant contraction of the workforce of seat suppliers and others, which made the process even longer. But we started the process of procurement, design, and certification of manufacturing in mid-2022, and the first widebody aircraft with that new product comes out, let's hope, in January 2026. So that's your first A350? Actually, that is our first 787. Once the first aircraft comes out and is certified, we'll be rolling through two or three aircraft every month with the new product. I do apologize for getting confused with Air India's labyrinth fleet. But coming back to the idea of expectations in India of what a transformed Air India could do, how fast, was that always going to be unreasonable? People think in a year, and then you get a bad time of, 'Look, my product on a 777...' Is that just part of the course? Is this the market we're in?
It's part of the course anywhere. As a passenger, of course you want what you want when you want it. You have the comparison of what the other guys are offering now, and you say why can't this happen fast. You don't understand the certification, the regulation, the supply chain, all the complexities of the business, and nor should you. But we were very clear from the beginning that this transformation would take five years. Supply chain challenges may stretch this by six months or so, but it was always a five-year process, and we communicated it as regularly and clearly as we could. But clearly, if I'm a customer, I want the new product now, and I can't understand why it isn't available now. It's just the nature of the business.
Absolutely. We talked a lot about your fleet just now. Let's just unpick a little bit so I've got that really clear. So you've got the first of the 787s coming in early '26, or...?
The new ones should come in December.
So the first 787 in December, and then next year one every six weeks, mostly 787s and a couple of A350s.
Okay, let's just be specific. So you're expecting two A350s next year?
Might stretch into January, February, which is financial.
I'm just saying, I think it's important because...
Every six weeks, it's not confusing.
No, no, okay, fine. Um, those are A350-900s? Those are the ones that get...
They're 1000s. Okay, so you're going to start with the 1000. Have you got 900s as well?
There are six 900s already.
Yeah. And have you got any other 900s on order? Are they all 1000?
Okay, we got 900s as well as 1000.
20 of each, I think. Is that right?
I did my research. Ravi helped me. I hope I got it right.
I hope there are some aircraft nerds in the audience. This is very... beginning.
I'm quite cool with this because I know what I'm going to ask next, which is: the confidence in your order stream from both Boeing and Airbus. You're a massively important customer. They're going to look after you. That's kind of a question, but also, are they looking after you?
I think the two OEMs would be the first to admit that they have had challenges ramping up their production to the level they had hoped. I think all customers have been pushed back 6 to 12 months. I think we're being pushed back in line with everyone else. So yes, we're being looked after in that respect. Of course, we would like the aircraft to be arriving when we originally hoped, but that's the nature of the industry. It's not just the assemblers, the airframers, that are facing this challenge. There are supply chain constraints with engines, seats, laboratories, interior panels. They are trying to work through it. It's incredibly better now than it was three years ago, two years ago, one year ago. But it takes time to ramp up production.
I understand. You've got a whole order stream of narrowbodies as well, which are coming at a nice rate.
