By Ameya Joshi
On January 22 this year, Air India became the first Indian carrier to operate the Airbus A350 aircraft as it started commercial service. When VT-JRA, the first A350 for Air India and first in India, touched down at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport in December 2023, it marked a watershed moment for not just Air India and its fleet renewal plans but also for Airbus. This was the first and only Airbus widebody in India at that time.
Airbus has had a great dominance in the narrowbody market, even after the shutdown of Go FIRST, with IndiGo, Air India and Vistara operating the A320 family, while Air India Express being stagnant, SpiceJet under financial issues and Akasa Air too small to help Boeing with the market share, especially after the fall of Jet Airways. However, Boeing had total domination in the widebody segment with all i.e. 100% of widebodies with Indian carriers being Boeing aircraft. The 787s of Air India and Vistara, along with the B777s of Air India comprised the widebody fleet in India.
Airbus made the first breakthrough in February 2023 when Air India signed up for 40 A350s, in addition to 20 Dreamliners and 10 B777X. Airbus had a presence in Indian skies in the form of A330s to both Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways. Air India has been an Airbus widebody operator in the past too. Air India moving to Boeing and the fall of Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways meant that Airbus did not have a widebody in India, even as it cornered the narrowbody market with incremental record orders from IndiGo. A success with IndiGo would open up such large deals for Airbus in the region where VietJet and AirAsia X have invested in widebody operations but are yet to find firm ground.
Will Airbus challenge Boeing’s dominance going forward?
Air India and Vistara, currently operate 60 Boeing widebody aircraft comprising the legacy B777s of Air India, 787s of both Air India (-8) and Vistara (-9) and the former Delta and former Etihad B777s. These are supplemented by six A350-900s.
Air India has another 36 A350s on order, while IndiGo will add 30, making it 66 A350s in India. Air India will also add 20 B787-9 Dreamliner and 10 B77X over the next 5-7 years. At some point, the oldest B777s from the Air India fleet will leave the fleet, which could be another six to eight years from now. This means that from zero widebody aircraft in India to being possibly the leader or neck to neck with Boeing, Airbus would have made a marvellous comeback in Indian skies with the A350.
How did Airbus do it?
The turn in fortunes for Airbus came with both the growth of the market, the privatization of Air India and most importantly the product in the form of the A350. The carbon composites driven aircraft is considered an engineering advancement in aviation and came out a few years after the Dreamliner – which was plagued with problems and included an expensive grounding.
With a clean sheet design that was technologically advanced and ensured it would remain so for over a decade or more and no new planes coming from competition, the A350 became the backbone of the Airbus sales campaign. The mix of pricing, range and comfort did the rest of the trick.
Final frontier?
The final frontier for Airbus in India could be the A220s and will IndiGo be the customer for the same? IndiGo has ATRs – a JV of Airbus, the A320 family aircraft comprising the A320, A320neo, A321neo and A321XLR on order and now the A350 widebody on order. The only segment that IndiGo does not have from the Airbus portfolio is the A220 small jets.
Airbus commands over two-thirds of the market in India in the civil aviation space — 84% of all narrowbody aircraft in India are from Airbus. The success may not be replicated in widebody space, but the journey may have just begun for Airbus.
Ameya Joshi is an aviation analyst and columnist who runs the analysis website Network Thoughts.
