Air India's Aged Airplanes

The Global Airline Industry's fleet average age is 180 months (15 years), but Air India's fleet is stuck at 16.23 years. This is driven by the airline's fleet of leased A310's, all averaging out at around 20 years. One of those 19 veterans collapsed its nosegear on landing at Delhi on April 09. On that same day an Air India 767 made an emergency landing at Delhi - also due to hydraulic problems. The events are symptomatic of a general maintenance malaise. By comparison Emirates' fleet has an average age of 5.1 years and that will soon drop even further with the disposal of a few aircraft and the acquisition of many. Air India's problems are related to the ongoing high maintenance work-load required to keep its aging fleet in serviceable condition. However one desired effect of Air India's forthcoming amalgamation with Indian Airlines is the much desired drop of its fleet average age to the industry average. Another Middle East operator with serviceability challenges is GulfAir. It has recently decided to drop its number of Fleet units from 34 to 28 as part of a grass-roots restructuring, which will mean an under-servicing of some of its routes. This has been brought about by the need for extensive corrosion repair of its 767 fleet and the relative scarcity of suitable pre-owned widebody jets - as well as the unavailability of production-line positions. Gulf Air has decided to re-orient and rebuild to become an all Airbus fleet operator. For Related Info