Air India’s financial situation needs no introduction. They have been underutilising their fleet, and grounding aircraft for lack of spares. While they stick the label of maintenance, the lack of spares is a direct result of a lack of cash to buy them. They even took to scavenging aircraft earlier (removing parts from some aircraft to fit into another one). While IndiGo can’t find enough planes to fly, there are many Air India A321 grounded for months now.

As of now here is the inventory of aircraft out of action,

Reports are that Air India will reactivate the grounded narrowbody fleet and roster them back in service. All Air India A321 will be operational by December 2018 according to the airline. However,  Air India has not announced any new A321 routes apart from two redeye flights and a functional change in one route to Singapore for a couple of months.

They did manage to operate all routes even with 15% of their narrowbody fleet grounded in September 2018. Since then, they have added Bengaluru – Bangkok, Kolkata – Bangkok and Jaipur – Kolkata on an Airbus A321, Delhi – Nanded on an Airbus A319 and will operate Ahmedabad – Bengaluru on an Airbus A319. Between September and November, 3 Airbus A319 and 2 Airbus A321 aircraft were already back in service. Wonder where the 6 Airbus A321s will fly.

I know Air India will operate an Airbus A321 on Mumbai – Singapore and Chennai – Singapore route till January 27, 2018. But it is doing so by replacing the Boeing 787s that operates the route. Jet Airways is also switching to narrowbody operations on the Mumbai-Singapore route.

Is it a similar case with Air India’s widebody fleet too?

Apart from the narrowbody fleet, Air India also has several widebody aircraft out of action. Well, unlike the narrowbody fleet, we don’t know when the widebody aircraft will be back in the air. Most of them are undergoing maintenance for quite a few months now.

Air India does take a lot of time for maintenance. One such example is VT-ANO (Boeing 787). It went out of service on May 18, 2018, after completing a New Delhi – Mumbai flight. It returned to service on October 27, 2018, on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route. The aircraft was out of service for more than five months. VT-ANK, another Boeing 787 has been out of service for more than four months now. That is a long time for maintenance.

As a point of comparison, a heavy C/D check on a Boeing 777-300ER takes approximately two months.

Aircraft type	Aircraft Registeration	Status	Airport Grounded At	Last Flight	Last Flight on	Notes
A319	VT-SCN	Operational	Kolkata	AI 628 NAG-BOM	February 7, 2019	Back on March 6, 2019 AI 705 CCU-DIB FlightAware shows only 5 flights operated from November 28, 2018 to February 27, 2019
A319	VT-SCR	Operational	Mumbai	AI 626 LKO-BOM	April 07, 2019	A few one off flights in June and July 2019, back from August 7, 2019
A319	VT-SCS	Operational	Mumbai	AI 662 GOI-BOM	February 10, 2019	Back on June 29, 2019 as AI 54 BOM-COK
A319	VT-SCT	Grounded	Delhi	AI 821 IXJ-SXR	January 14, 2019	Before that operated AI 812 LKO-DEL on 12-11-2018
A319	VT-SCU	Grounded	Mumbai	AI 668 TRV-BOM	December 26, 2018	Operated one-off flight HYD-BOM on March 15, 2019
A319	VT-SCV	Operational	Delhi	AI 1764 DEL-CCU	January 17, 2019	Operated one-off flight BHO-BOM on March 23, 2019. Back on June 7, 2019 as AI230 CCU-DAC
A319	VT-SCX	Grounded	Delhi	AI 628 NAG-BOM	February 3, 2019	FlightAware shows only 5 recorded operated flights since 13-11-2018
A321	VT-PPL	Operational	Hyderabad	AI 542 HYD-TIR	February 2, 2019	Accident at Tirupati Airport. Before that operated last flight AI 24 DEL-BOM on 12-01-2019. Back on July 27, 2019 as AI 661 BOM-GOI
A321	VT-PPM	Operational	Delhi	DEL-BOM (Cancelled)	June 21, 2018	Back on May 8, 2019 as AI 91 BOM-AMD
A321	VT-PPN	Grounded	Hyderabad	AI 541 TIR-HYD	January 29, 2019
A321	VT-PPT	Operational	Mumbai	AI 683 BOM-GOI	August 11, 2018	Back on March 8, 2019 AI 618 HYD-BOM
A321	VT-PPU	Grounded	Mumbai	AI 665 DEL-BOM	September 20, 2018
A321	VT-PPW	Grounded	Mumbai	AI 614 AMD-BOM	April 3, 2019
A321	VT-PPX	Grounded	Delhi	AI 806 BOM-DEL (Cancelled flight on November 28, 2018)	Maybe July 22, 2018 as AI 630 NAG-BOM
A320	VT-EDC	Operational	Delhi	AI 820 BDQ-DEL	February 19, 2019	Back on July 2, 2019
A320	VT-EDF	Operational	Delhi	AI 840 HYD-DEL	February 13, 2019	Back on March 20, 2019 AI 439 DEL-MAA
747-400	VT-ESP	Operational	Mumbai	AI 5226 MED-BOM	September 18, 2019	Back on March 9, 2019 as AI 144 BOM-DEL
747-400	VT-ESO	Operational	Mumbai	AI 966 HYD-BOM	May 28, 2019	AI 1
747-400	VT-EVA	Grounded	Mumbai	AI 191 DEL-BOM	May 13, 2019
747-400	VT-EVB	Operational	Mumbai	AI 966 HYD-BOM	January 29, 2019	Back on June 24, 2019 as AI 144 BOM-DEL
777-300ER	VT-ALO	Grounded	Mumbai	BOM-BOM	August 9, 2018
777-300ER	VT-ALU	Operational	Nagpur	AI 1469 DEL-NAG	September 22, 2018	Back on June 6, 2019 as AI 144 BOM-DEL
787-8	VT-ANB	Operational	Mumbai	AI 349 DEL-BOM	January 7, 2019	Back on May 24, 2019 as AI 31 BOM-AMD
787-8	VT-ANG	Operational	Mumbai	AI 331 BKK-BOM	April 7, 2018	Back on May 22, 2019 as AI 31 BOM-AMD
787-8	VT-ANJ	Grounded	Mumbai	AI 865 DEL-BOM	October 9, 2018
787-8	VT-ANK	Operational	Mumbai	AI 331 BKK-BOM	July 8, 2018	Back on April 6, 2019 AI 330 BOM-BKK
787-8	VT-ANM	Grounded	Mumbai	AI 863 DEL-BOM	January 2, 2019
787-8	VT-ANN	Operational	Mumbai	AI 349 DEL-BOM	February 25, 2019	Back on April 13, 2019 AI 310 BOM-DEL
787-8	VT-ANO	Operational	Mumbai	AI 315 DEL-BOM	April 28, 2019	Back on July 12, 2019 AI 687 BOM-DEL
787-8	VT-ANU	Operational	Delhi	AI 121 DEL-FRA Suffered mid-air decompression.	March 6, 2019	Back on May 31, 2019 as AI 20 DEL-CCU.

In the airline business, a plane makes money only when it is in the air. Other airlines push their aircraft utilisation, putting them in the air for 14-15 hours, and Air India has them on the ground. What a terrible state of affairs.