Air India Orders 500 Planes? What Boeing's India Chief Said

Reacting to reports on the internet about Air India placing a mammoth order for 500 aircraft from leading aeroplane manufacturers such as Boeing and Airbus, Boeing's India unit president Salil Gupte on Wednesday said we are not going to comment on how many orders were placed.

To a question on how many orders were placed by the Tata Group, the Boeing India president said, "We are in active discussion with many customers. We don't ever talk about orders until the customer places them. We will see what the customers ultimately require."

In December last year, several reports emerged of Air India placing landmark orders for as many as 500 aircraft, worth tens of billions of dollars from both Airbus and Boeing.

In an exclusive interview with ANI, Mr Gupte further said he was hopeful that the world would make a broad-based recovery from the Covid pandemic.

"We are seeing a strong recovery now. India's domestic aviation market has also surpassed pre-pandemic levels. The international market is also recovering strongly. I am seeing a broad-based recovery from Covid around the world. Even the China market has now started to open up, even as the country is going through challenging times in the wake of a fresh Covid outbreak. However, we are very confident they will come out of it and when they do, there will be significant outbound travellers and domestic travellers as well. So we are very confident that global travel will be on track after the dull Covid years."

On whether the Union government needs to build more airport infrastructure in the backdrop of recent congestion at Terminal 3 of IGI, Boeing's India president said there is no doubt that India requires additional infrastructure and the Centre is focussed on developing it.

"New airports will come up in Noida, Mumbai," he added.

Mr Gupte said Boeing has received significant orders from major airlines in India. "We have orders booked from significant customers like Akasa Air, SpiceJet, Vistara and our friend Air India," he added.

He further told ANI that in the next two decades, over 2,200 aircraft would hit Indian shores.

"We know for sure that in the next 20 years, over 2,200 aeroplanes will be coming to India. Less than half of them, 40 per cent to be precise, were ordered today, which means 60 per cent still have to be ordered. We are very confident that we (Boeing) will bag a significant portion of those," Mr Salil told ANI.