Air India says it would be operating its new Boeing-787 Dreamliner aircraft on key domestic routes, not abroad, to begin with. The first of these is to be inducted later this month, on routes such as Mumbai-Delhi.
The objective is to enable pilots to get familiar with the aircraft and complete the required training to fly it. Last month, the Union government gave its go-ahead to AI to take delivery of 27 of these. The first two are expected to be delivered in three weeks and the third in June.
Later, the plan is to ply to Sydney/Melbourne (September onwards) and also
the Frankfurt, Paris and London routes. The Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 planes in current use have seating capacity for 140-200. The Dreamliner will have 256 seats.
Eight sets of pilots from AI are undergoing simulator training for the 787 in Singapore. They will be joined by another 10 from the erstwhile Indian Airlines, who will resume training from next week, following a bitter legal battle on pilot selection for the aircraft, which went to the Supreme Court.
A section of pilots is still agitating against the management's decision to select erstwhile IA pilots for the 787. According to sources, a few pilots reported sick today, but an AI spokesperson said all operations were normal.
