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A-I board decides to acquire 17 aircraft

The Air-India board, on Friday, its nod for the acquisition of seventeen 250-seater aircraft over the next five years as part of its fleet expansion plans to meet growing capacity requirements, civil aviation ministry sources said.

The board meeting, chaired by Civil Aviation Secretary K Roy Paul who also heads A-I as its chairman, decided to acquire a combination of Airbus A 340-300 and Boeing B 737-200 ER (extended range), the sources said but refused to disclose how many of each aircraft the carrier had decided to acquire.

However, it is still too early to say by when the acquisition process would begin as the government was yet to take a decision on Indian Airlines' decision to acquire 43 Airbus aircraft of different make, the sources said.

The opinion of the finance ministry on the domestic carrier's fleet expansion plan was still awaited, they said.

Friday's decision of the A-I board came after the airline's experts and technical committees recommended acquisition of 17 aircraft over the next five years.

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