Count it in the I told you so section. In April 2019, exactly on the day Jet Airways was crumbling, Air India made an ambitious proposal, to take over 5 of the Boeing 77W aircraft owned by Jet Airways, and operate routes such as Mumbai – London, Mumbai – Dubai, Delhi – London, Delhi – Dubai and Delhi – Singapore with those aircraft. Who did they reach out to? State Bank of India, who, till date has no control over Jet Airways.

Now, this seems to be a plot unravelled. Air India has passed on the blame to SBI. Air India says to Mint,

We have submitted our plans (to lease the aircraft) to State Bank of India (SBI) and we are yet to hear from them.

But another publication states,

The engineering unit has done the work around the B777s and found no merit in taking them.

At the point in time, it was our contention, that Air India does not have the slots to operate additional flights. As Karan wrote, then,

To operate additional flights if that’s what Air India is suggesting, you need slots which Air India doesn’t have, sort of. Air India did secure an extra 3x weekly slot pair at London Heathrow for Summer 2019. But they haven’t added any new flights to London Heathrow. We don’t know if they still have those extra slots or not.

We also wrote that Air India has 24 aircraft on the ground, which, if fixed, would be enough to take the load off the airline. Here is the list presented again,

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.

There is now news flow, that Air India has indeed marked INR 500 crores to fix these aircraft, which is money it did not have before. They intend to fix up these aircraft and get them in the air. I’d perhaps advise them not to. It would be too little too late. Because if they haven’t gotten in on the party so far, they will miss out the great opportunities being presented in the next months for flights to London anyway.

One may argue that opportunities continue to present themselves long term, but you also need to be ready to get those opportunities ready first. And perhaps they are, as India’s only widebody operator at this moment, going to take their time to get their act in order. Call it lethargy.

What do you make of this entire Air India episode? Did anyone expect this to play out as stated in the first place?