- Tuesday, March 04, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
The recently agreed mega deal between Air India and aircraft-manufacturing giants Boeing and Airbus will create more than 200,000 jobs in India — directly and indirectly — according to top experts in the aviation sector, Business Today reported.
Under the deal, Air India, which is owned by Tata Sons and has a fleet of 140 aircraft currently, will buy 470 jets from the two manufacturers.
According to the experts, the deal would lead to a flurry of employment opportunities in the south Asian nation’s aviation sector as the airline would need operational staff members for ancillary roles.
Mark Martin, CEO of Martin Consulting, a firm which has expertise in the aviation sector, told Business Today, “There are two aspects to the kinds of jobs that will be created, direct employment and indirect employment. The total direct plus indirect jobs created for a narrow-body aircraft is around 400. And for a wide body plane, it is around 600-700.”
“Direct Employment will include those who are directly employed by the airline, for example, pilots, cabin crew, all technical and non-technical staff. This is around 175 for a narrow-body aircraft. And adding indirect people i.e. external to the company, supporting the aircraft including airport staff, air traffic controllers, transport vendors, service providers, and others, this number comes up to 400 for a narrow body plane,” he added.
For a wide-body plane, Martin said, “Direct employment in case of widebody is around 250 to 300 and after including indirect employment, this number can go up to 600 to 700.”
“By extrapolating this data, one can conclude that the jobs created would be around 2,02,000 to 2,09,000,” he was quoted as saying by Business Today.
Jitender Bhargava, former executive director at Air India, told the news publication, “Air India will need experienced pilots, cabin crew members, maintenance engineers, ground crew, etc. But most importantly, this deal would mean flights would now reach locations that are not yet connected via airways. This would give a boost to infrastructure as well as tourism in that location.”
It may be mentioned here that in a now-deleted LinkedIn post, Air India chief commercial and transformation officer Nipun Aggarwal said the deal with the twin aircraft manufacturers was for 840 planes out of which order for 470 had been placed while 370 were in options.
“The order comprises of 470 firm aircraft, 370 options, and purchase rights to be procured from Airbus and Boeing over the next decade,” Aggarwal’s deleted post said.
Bhargava said these “370 options” meant Air India could buy 370 aircraft at the same rate at which the other 470 aircraft were purchased.
“The options in the deal means that the airline has frozen the price. This means it can buy 370 aircraft at the same price at which it bought the 470 aircraft,” he told Business Today.
The outlet cited sources as saying that the aircraft were sold to the airline at a discounted price.
Employment opportunities will also be created in the US as a result of the deal.
Soon after Air India announced the agreement, US president Joe Biden hailed it as historic and said the partnership would create millions of jobs in his country.
French president Emmanuel Macron and British prime minister Rishi Sunak also welcomed the deal since it would also be instrumental for their respective nation’s aviation sector.
Manish Tewari, parliamentarian from India’s opposition Indian National Congress, claimed that zero jobs will be created by the deal.
