‘Victims of circumstance’: Air India says aircraft shortage woes to go on for 4-5 years

This comes as supply snags hobble aircraft production at the world's top jetmakers Boeing and Airbus.

Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said that global aircraft shortage which is hampering the airline's growth will go on for four to five years more.

An Air India plane (Representational photo)

This comes as supply snags hobble aircraft production at the world's top jetmakers Boeing and Airbus, news agency Reuters reported.

Wilson said he especially sees pinch points in the supply of narrowbody jet engines, business and first class seats, and some elements of aircraft fuselages, which he highlighted while speaking at an event organised by travel news website Skift.

This is because Boeing is recovering from a near two-month crippling worker strike with the plane maker being unable to produce more than 38 737 MAX aircraft per month due to a cap set by the US Federal Aviation Administration.

Air India had ordered 470 jets from Airbus and Boeing, including 10 of the US plane maker's much-delayed 777X aircraft and 190 Boeing 737 MAX jets.

Late last year, the airline ordered 100 more Airbus aircraft.

This comes at a time when Air India is in the middle of an ambitious turnaround strategy two years after the Tata Group took control of the airline.

However, its restructuring efforts have been complicated by the same jet delivery delays, forcing it to operate older jets longer than planned with increasing maintenance costs slowing down its modernization and expansion drive, according to the report.

“There is not a lot we can do,” the report quoted Wilson as saying. “We are victims of circumstance, as is every other airline.”

He added that this also "means you can't expand to places you would otherwise like to expand."

On top of this, the competition among airlines themselves to lease aircraft make leasing aircraft challenging, he said.