TIL Desk/Business/New Delhi/ Disinvestment-bound flag carrier Air India has taken delivery of its 23rd and the last Boeing 777 plane which can be used in ultra-long haul routes, and thus also completing its 68 aircraft orders placed with the US plane-maker more than a decade ago.
The last B777-300 ER, which can carry almost 300 passengers and bearing registration number VT-ALX, landed at the Indira Gandhi international airport in the Capital yesterday, an airline source said. Air India took the delivery of the last 777 aircraft from the Seattle facility of Boeing on Thursday and it was scheduled to arrive in New Delhi on Friday, the source added.
“But as the pilot who was to ferry the aircraft suffered a cardiac attack on board Air India’s New Delhi-San Francisco flight (on which he was the co-pilot), the aircraft arrived with a one-day delay,” the source said. An Air India spokesperson confirmed the induction of the last and the 23rd 777s from the 68 orders it had placed with Boeing in 2006.
On March 5, Air India flight AI 173 from New Delhi to San Francisco carrying 215 passengers was diverted to the airport in Sapporo, which is the capital city of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, due to a medical emergency.
