Days of getting your “class” upgraded on international flights may be over, with Air India taking a firm stand against upgrades on its non-stop flights.
However, airline won’t stop overbooking seats
NEW DELHI: Days of getting your “class” upgraded on international flights may be over, with Air India taking a firm stand against upgrades on its non-stop flights.
Chairman and managing director V Thulsaidas said the airline has decided to completely ban the practice of upgrading economy class passengers when seats are vacant in the executive and first class categories, especially on non-stop flights.
Air India already operates a non-stop flight between Mumbai and New York and is beginning the same service from Delhi next month. The 777-200 LR aircraft being deployed on the Mumbai-NY and Delhi-NY route can seat eight passengers in the first class, 35 in the executive (business) class and 195 in the economy class.
Thulasidas was also categorical in continuing with the practice of overbooking seats on international routes, saying this is a global practice and all airlines need to follow it to “make money.”
“This is a routine practice for international operations, mostly it works fine. But no overbooking means seats remain empty… On rare occasions, every one turns up and that is when some offloading will have to happen. We are now watching booking profiles to lessen overbooking.”
Fleet expansion
Faced with delays in delivery of the 787 Dreamliners by Boeing, Air India is reworking its fleet plans. Not only is it thinking of leasing more aircraft, but may also delay phasing out of the old planes in its fleet to tide over the seat shortage.
Thulasidas said it would look at leasing 10-15 aircraft between now and 2011.
“Also, we need to rework the phase-out plan for old aircraft. We wanted to phase out 12 A310s and two 747-300 aircraft in out fleet, but now we will have to see,” he added.
Air India has already placed orders for 111 new aircraft till 2011, of which 28 have been received so far.
b_sindhu@dnaindia.net
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