Air India's low-cost arm Air India Express is expecting to induct 20 to 24 aircraft in the fleet in the next calendar year, a top airline executive said on Tuesday.

Air India currently has a fleet of 110 planes comprising Airbus 320/ 321, Boeing 737 and 737 Max.

" We are looking at about 20 to 24 aircraft in the next calendar year," Air India Managing Director Aloke Singh said here at an event to showcase the first retrofitted aircraft of Air India Express.

He, however, said that these deliveries would depend upon the supply chain and how the production line at the Boeing manufacturing facility progresses.

He said that Air India Express is now looking to strengthen its presence in the domestic market, with this segment expected to grow faster than the international network.

"About two years ago, as much as 60 per cent of the network was short-haul international network and the remaining 40 per cent domestic. Today, it is about 50-50 per cent. We have been growing international short-haul as well. But we have been growing faster in the domestic Indian market," Singh said.

Over the course of the next couple of years, he said, Air India Express will be continuing on this trajectory.

"So, the domestic network will be growing faster than the short-haul international network. On the domestic network, the strategy broadly is depth before spread," he said.

Stating that the airline wants to have a meaningful presence on city-pairs with the aim to have at least about one third of the market, he said, "Our focus continues to be metro to tier 2, tier 3 cities." He said that if one looks at the airline's network structure, the bulk of the network, almost 80 per cent of its domestic capacity goes from metros to non-metros, tier 2, tier 3 cities or the largest segment of the domestic market, which is the fastest growing segment as well.

So, Air India focuses on the metro-to-metro routes and the routes which have a greater composition of business traffic and, of course, long-haul international (routes)," Singh.

Air India Express is focusing on the leisure markets, the BFR, the best reference and revenues market, the SME market, the value-conscious market, which is primarily metro-to non-metro, as well as the short-haul regional international," he said.

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