Four years to the day the Tatas took over Air India from the government, the troubled airline took one step closer to its promised dream of a world-class airline. It unveiled its custom-styled cabin interiors for the first made-for- Air India Dreamliner on the eve of Wings 2026, India’s biggest civil and commercial aviation event.
By flying in its ‘line fitted’ new Dreamliner straight from Boeing factories to Hyderabad Begumpet, the venue of the air show (via Delhi), the Gurugram-headquartered company will also be hoping to put to rest the nightmare that was last year, when it hit more than plain turbulence.
“(This) is a significant moment in Air India’s five-year Vihaan.AI transformation programme,” said Campbell Wilson, CEO & MD of Air India, who himself travelled in the plane on its maiden journey on the Delhi-Hyderabad Begumpet route.
“It underscores Air India’s commitment to delivering world-class physical product and inflight entertainment experience to complement the warm Indian hospitality already delivered by our crew.”
The plan is to have this same cabin interiors designs standard across the entire Boeing 787 (the official name of the Dreamliners) fleet. 19 under production aircraft will be ‘line fitted’ (a term for a customised interior fitting done at the aircraft manufacturing facility itself), while 26 of the existing Dreamliners will be retrofitted with the new interiors and entertainment systems.
The new design include not just the usual three-class configuration (Business, Premium Economy and Economy) and entertainment features (including minor but thoughtful features like four charging points), but innovative additions like 10-custom designed mood lighting inspired by ancient Indian wellness traditions based on chakras — vital energy centres in the human body that support physical, mental and emotional balance. This was developed in collaboration with Tata Elxsi.
While nearly 100 new and leased aircraft have already joined the Air India fleet since privatisation, the Dreamliner unveiled at Wings on Tuesday is the first designed by and for Air India.
Despite Tata’s takeover in 2022 and the subsequent announcement of a five-year transformation plan, record orders for new aircraft and the streamlining of operations by merging Vistara into Air India and the subsidiary AirAsia India into Air India Express, complaints of poor quality of aircraft and service had plagued the entity over the past several years. The Gujarat disaster last year was another debilitating blow.
The company’s hope is that a combination of new aircraft, new crew and the reworking of systems will help it move up the value chain in front of customers, and gain market share from present sector leader IndiGo.