Air India to Remove First Class Seating from International Flights

Saturday, 1st February 2014 at 10:28am

Air India, India's flagship carrier has announced plans to remove first class seating from international flights. According to the airlines, this move has been taken to cut losses.

The move had previously faced opposition from government officials who often travel on these seats at discounted rates and were looking to retain their benefits despite the airline facing huge losses. The habit of giving out these seats at discounted prices to officials has been long thought as one of the reasons that Air India has not been performing very well. The Indian government had made it mandatory for government officials to travel on the airline a few years back.

Air India has been operating at a loss for the last seven years and had been using government handouts to keep operating. The losses came about dude to huge competition in the market, constant rises in fuel prices and a merger with Indian Airlines which many considered to have been mishandled and mismanaged. Air India is also under a lot of pressure from debts resulting from a $15 billion aircraft order.

The move to cut seats has been lauded by analysts with Kapil Kaul of Sydney based consultancy CAPA saying "It's a very sensible decision by Air India. Its first class was mostly used by government secretaries and other officials. Recently, there has been embargo on (travelling by) first class for government officials by the finance ministry which might have led to this decision by AI."

Although Air India lost over 39 billion rupees over the last year, it is said to be recovering due to such cost cutting measures and replacing their old planes with new ones like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

The airline currently offers first class on 12 of their airplanes which are Boeing 777s with four seats each on flights that go out to international hubs such as Newark, Chicago, Singapore etc.

"Of the four seats, on an average, only one is occupied, which is around 25% load factor. Usually, these are government officials.

The problem we face is that even if there is one person in first class, we have to carry supplies for all four first-class passengers," said a senior Air India official.

By: Pete Lee.