Air India CEO on Impact of Bilateral Rights on Indian Carriers’ Ability to Fill Seats

Indian full-service carrier Air India has said its plans to invest in new aircraft will depend on the government’s policy on bilateral agreements and the seat capacity being granted, CEO Campbell Wilson said this week at an aviation event in India. Last year, the airline placed an order for 470 new aircraft with Boeing and Airbus. It is also upgrading its fleet, set to retrofit more than 100 planes, of which 40 are wide-body aircraft. It has also ordered around 25,000 seats as part of its fleet revamp, investing $400m in this upgrade. Wilson was quoted as saying, “Indian carriers recently ordered more than 1,000 aircraft. We are committing to that on the basis that there would be an economic return to that investment, which, if you add it all, is well over $100b.” However, if more bilateral rights are granted to hubs in other countries, it would impact Indian airlines’ ability to fill seats on those aircraft, Wilson said. “If the rug is pulled from under us, if we can’t fill the aircraft, we will not take them,” he said, referring to taking wide-body aircraft. He further stated that granting more bilateral rights would feed the economies of those countries instead of India’s as they would take traffic from India and transfer about 80-90% of it to other parts of the world.<br/>