The steady stream of B737 MAX deliveries to Air India Express (IX, Delhi International) will end mid-year once Boeing delivers the last of its stockpile of aircraft originally ordered by Chinese carriers, according to Bloomberg.
Air India Express has received around two new B737-8s every month since September 2023 as Boeing hands over aircraft ordered by Chinese operators but not taken up. To date, Air India Express has taken 41 such aircraft, with nine more due before June 30. At this point, the manufacturer will have cleared its stockpile and Air India Express will have to get into the lengthy delivery queue.
"All those inventoried airplanes that were done before 2023, we're hard at work at moving them out and delivering those to [other] customers," Boeing CFO Brian West said at March's Bank of America Global Industrials Conference.
Air India Express is the low-cost unit of Air India (AI, Delhi International), both being owned by Tata Sons. The two have large orders at Airbus and Boeing and have benefited from expedited deliveries by taking up aircraft ordered by other carriers that were not delivered for various reasons.
Discounting nine B737-8s due to be delivered over the next three months, Air India Express has another ninety B737-8s and fifty B737-10s on order at Boeing. However, after June no further deliveries are expected until March or April 2026. Meanwhile, competitor IndiGo Airlines (6E, Delhi International), which has a large narrowbody order at Airbus, anticipates taking delivery of one aircraft every week over the same period.
Boeing's latest order data reveals Indian operators have 509 aircraft on order, including the ninety-nine B737-8s and fifty B737-10s due to Air India Express, ninety-nine B737-10s and 100 B737-8-200s due to Akasa Air (QP, Mumbai International), 129 B737-8s due to SpiceJet (SG, Delhi International), and ten B777-9s and B787-9s ordered by Air India.
