New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) Air India will rebalance its network, work to regain overseas market share, reduce costs and order more wide-body planes as the loss-making airline seeks to turn the corner.
Spelling out his broad revival plans, CEO and MD Tewolde Gebremariam on Tuesday said Air India is punching below its weight and that will change.
In his first public event after taking over the reins of the Tata Group-owned airline, Gebremariam said profitability is a concern now, but there are huge opportunities in the long term.
As part of the strategy, Gebremariam said they are also working on getting Air India and Air India Express to work together to drive efficiency, synergy, shared corporate functions and so on.
Faced with multiple headwinds, including surging fuel prices and Pakistan airspace closure impacting long-haul operations, Air India saw its loss widen to more than Rs 22,000 crore in the 2025-26 fiscal.
Against this backdrop, Gebremariam said he was more impatient than the shareholders to turn Air India profitable.
According to him, some of the headwinds, such as high fuel prices and geopolitical problems in the Middle East, are common for the airline industry.
"We have the unique problem of the Pakistan airspace closure... but I put all these problems as short-term headwinds or turbulence that we need to navigate so that we emerge stronger for our future, for the long-term future growth," Gebremariam said.
Stressing that the priority is to reduce costs, he said multiple activities are being done in this regard.
These include "balancing, rebalancing our up and network. Most of our network, unfortunately, in Europe and America, has been affected by the airspace closure. So, Delhi is more affected than Mumbai," he said.
Apart from Delhi and Mumbai, the airline will be looking at Bengaluru as the third hub for its operations.
He said the network to Europe and the US from Delhi has been impacted.
As part of rebalancing, some operations would be shifted to Mumbai.
Gebremariam had implemented a long-term transformation plan for Ethiopian Airlines that spanned around 15 years.
In this context, in response to a question on whether a 15-year plan could be looked at for Air India, the CEO said the transformation would be long-term and mentioned in a lighter vein that it could be even 20 years.
To tap the huge opportunities, Air India plans to order more wide-body aircraft as it seeks to boost international connectivity in the future.
Currently, Air India has 171 planes, including 61 wide-body aircraft.
There are Airbus A350s, Boeing B787s and B777s in its fleet.
Overall, Air India has placed orders for 600 planes, and out of them, around 540 are to be delivered in the coming years. In the outstanding orders, there are nearly 70 wide-body aircraft.
Speaking at the Aviation India and South Asia 2026 conference in the national capital, the CEO noted that the group will be growing on both the full-service and low-cost operations side.
"In fact, more growth may come from the full-service (operations) wide-body (operations) because the opportunity there is much bigger.
"... on the LCC (Low Cost Carrier) side also, on Air India Express, there is growth. We want to position these brands to the customer of all segments in the market," he said.
The focus is to build on the transformation foundation and take the airline to the next stage, the CEO said.
He also emphasised that India can be a global hub if the right thing is done at the right time.
In October, Air India set up a multidisciplinary team to identify cost-saving opportunities, with the new CEO urging the staff to embed a mindset of frugality and accountability in all their work.
(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)