Air India Express wants to double market share in five years

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₹155.65 crore. The company currently has a fleet size of 64 aircraft, including 28 Airbus A320 and the rest are Boeing 737 family aircraft. It is set to increase substantially over this year as the airline is set to induct at least 40 out of the 190 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft that Air India has ordered.

“We are getting an aircraft every eight to nine days. So, we have taken delivery of 10 aircraft so far. We expect to induct 40 aircraft over the next 12 months.

By the end of five years, we are looking at a total fleet size of 180 aircraft as some aircraft will be retired," Singh said. He also reiterated that Air India Express will continue to have a mixed fleet of A320 and B737 aircraft. “There are challenges in a mixed fleet but firstly, we are looking at fleet from group perspective so aircraft asset can be fungible.

Also, when you are growing fleet size to that scale, the benefits of single-aircraft type start diminishing, resulting in diminishing returns," Singh added. The airline has focused on resonating with the price-sensitive flyer from Tier II and III cities. While offering an all-economy product, the airline will target customers from categories of visiting friends and relatives, leisure oriented, inbound and outbound tourists, small and medium enterprises, and some amount of corporate traffic as well.

“When you look at air traffic growth in the country, Tier II and III cities never fail to surprise us. We operate out of Surat. Who would have thought Surat can sustain the number of flights that we are sustaining? We have daily flights to Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, and flights to Sharjah and Dubai.