Air India to remove First Class from B777 long-range planes

Decision to do away with the cabin on Delhi-San Francisco flight is due to 'low occupancy'

State-run Air India has decided to do away with the first class cabin on its Delhi-San Francisco flight in view of “low occupancy”, barely a month after the carrier launched the services operated by a three- class B777-200LR aircraft.

Air India's decision to reconfigure these aircraft, which currently have eight first class seats, 35 business and 195 economy class seats, comes in the backdrop of heightened demand for business and economy classes, airline sources said.

The airline has three B777-200LRs in its fleet of over 125 aircraft, which would be reconfigured in phases.

All these three planes are being operate on the San Francisco route.

“We have seen just about 25 per cent occupancy in the First class cabin while the same for business class has picked by 30-35 per cent since the launch. Therefore, we have decided to operate the flight in two class configuration removing first class seats and adding more in the economy cabin,” airline sources said.

As part of the plan, the economy seats after the reconfiguration will go up to 298, they said.

The sources, however, said that the airline will not have to deploy any more planes on the San Francisco route during the reconfiguration period, which requires grounding of an aircraft as the entire exercise will be completed on rotation.

"We have three B777-200LR and all these will not be reconfigured together, but by turn," they said, adding that the airline was expected to incur upto USD 2 million on reconfiguration of each aircraft.