The first fresh-mint aircraft of the state-owned carrier, Indian, which has ordered 43 aircraft from the European manufacturer Airbus Industrie, arrived at the Indiara Gandhi International airport on Thursday morning.
The 122 seater Airbus A-319 was received by Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, Indian CMD Vishwapati Trivedi and senior officials of the ministry and other agencies.
The airline had ordered 19 A-319, 20 A-321 and four A-320 at an estimated cost of $2billion.
Deliveries of these aircraft would be stepped up from June 2007 with six aircraft to be delivered that year, 12 in 2008, 18 in 2009 and the last six in 2010.
All these planes would come in two-class configuration with the A-319 having 122 seats, A-321 with 172 seats and A-320 having 140 seats.
Barring the aircraft, which landed today, the remaining 42 planes would have in-flight audio-visual entertainment systems on the seatbacks.
