Air India Express Sees Slowdown in B737-8 Deliveries
After Boeing delivers the final aircraft in its inventory of aircraft initially ordered by Chinese carriers, the consistent flow of B737 MAX deliveries to Air India Express (IX, Delhi International) will stop in the middle of the year, according to Bloomberg.
Since September 2023, Air India Express has received about two new B737-8s each month as Boeing transfers aircraft that Chinese operators have bought but have not yet occupied. Air India Express has already taken 41 of these planes, and nine more are scheduled to arrive before June 30. By this time, Air India Express will have to join the long delivery line since the manufacturer will have cleared its inventory.
“All those inventoried airplanes that were done before 2023, we’re hard at work at moving them out and delivering those to [other] customers,” Boeing CFO Brian West said at March’s Bank of America Global Industrials Conference.
Air India Express is the low-cost unit of Air India (AI, Delhi International), both being owned by Tata Sons. The two have large orders at Airbus and Boeing and have benefited from expedited deliveries by taking up aircraft ordered by other carriers that were not delivered for various reasons.
Discounting nine B737-8s due to be delivered over the next three months, Air India Express has another ninety B737-8s and fifty B737-10s on order at Boeing. However, after June no further deliveries are expected until March or April 2026. Meanwhile, competitor IndiGo Airlines (6E, Delhi International), which has a large narrowbody order at Airbus, anticipates taking delivery of one aircraft every week over the same period.
Boeing’s latest order data reveals Indian operators have 509 aircraft on order, including the ninety-nine B737-8s and fifty B737-10s due to Air India Express, ninety-nine B737-10s and 100 B737-8-200s due to Akasa Air (QP, Mumbai International), 129 B737-8s due to SpiceJet (SG, Delhi International), and ten B777-9s and B787-9s ordered by Air India.
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