Airbus scouts India in search of elusive widebody customer

Bloomberg

Airbus SE has tried for years to find a new customer for its bigger jets in India, the world’s fastest growing aviation market before Covid shattered travel. Two of its previous buyers went bankrupt, while another was sold, giving arch rival Boeing Co a firm foothold in the South Asian nation’s market for transcontinental planes.
Remi Maillard, the chief of Airbus’s Indian unit, reckons things are about to change. The European planemaker has doubled down on efforts to sell its A350 jets to local carriers in recent days, with a specific eye on formerly state-run Air India Ltd, which under its new owners —conglomerate Tata Group — needs to revamp its fleet of Boeing 777 jets.
“We believe the A350 will trigger a tectonic shift, a change
of paradigm in long-haul travel that matches the
aspiration of India and its people,” Maillard told reporters in the southern city of Hyderabad, where top aviation executives and government officials have gathered this week for the Wings India airshow. “The A350 will play a strategic role in this transformation.”
Airbus flew an A350 to three major Indian cities over the past three days, showcasing the jet to potential customers and media. Ratan Tata, the Tata Group patriarch who was recently named chairman of Air India, also toured the plane, images posted on social media show.
Boeing and Airbus are in talks with the new owners of Air India about an order for a raft of new jets, Bloomberg News reported last month. Those discussions involve both A350-900s and 787-9 Dreamliners. Air India has a fleet of 16 Boeing 777 jets, with an average age of more than 12 years, according to Planespotters.net. Of its newer fleet of 27 Boeing 787 Dreamliners, seven are grounded.
In India, “widebody fleets have remained mostly stagnant for 20 years while single aisle fleets multiplied by factor of six,” Maillard said. “The growth in the domestic market for the last 20 years will be seen in the international market now.”
Airbus, formed through an amalgamation of European planemakers in 1970, previously sold its A380 superjumbos to Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, but the airline collapsed under a pile of debt and the order was cancelled. Jet Airways India Ltd, which operated A330 jets, also went belly up in 2019, while Air India returned its A330s last decade.
India will need 2,210 aircraft by 2040, Airbus predicted. While most of them will be smaller jets, 440 planes will be capable of flying long distances.