The CEO of Air India (AI, Delhi International) says the carrier will delay exercising its Boeing options until the manufacturer clears its backlog. Campbell Wilson told Reuters he wants delivery certainty.

"We don't want to commit to anything until we have confidence of when it's going to come," he said. "And likewise, they don't want to offer something until they have confidence of when it's going to come."

As of January 31, 2025, Air India's orderbook at Boeing stood at 153 B737 MAX, ten B777-9s, and twenty B787-9s. Included in the contracts are options for another fifty MAX and twenty B787-9s. Boeing has 619 B787-9s, 481 B777X, and 4,759 B737 MAX on backorder. However, the US Federal Aviation Administration is still to certify the B777X and has slowed MAX production to 38 aircraft per month.

"We expect to get [our aircraft], but do we expect to get them according to timeline? No, we don't," said Wilson. "And I think that every airline would tell you the same thing,"

Air India is in the process of a fleet renewal as part of a broader transformation underway under Wilson's watch. It also placed an order with Airbus in early 2023 for 140 A320-200Ns, seventy A321-200Ns, thirty-four A350-1000s, and six A350-900s. It backed that up with another order late last year for ninety A320neo family types and ten A350s. Airbus is also experiencing problems getting its aircraft off the assembly line and to customers on schedule.

Wilson said that apart from a slower-than-planned aircraft delivery pace, supply chain issues are decelerating the refurbishment of existing aircraft and impacting the transformation strategy.

"We've had delays from pretty much every supplier for every one of our seat upgrade programmes, some as short as six to nine months, others as long as 18 months," he said. "That just pushes out the whole product transformation longer than we had hoped."

While refurbishments of the existing B787 fleet are reportedly progressing reasonably well, the B777 refurbishments are experiencing delays because of problems procuring the seats. Recently, Air India said it was suspending its Mumbai International-Melbourne Airport and Kochi International-London Gatwick routes because of B777 shortages.

According to the ch-aviation fleets module, five of Air India's nineteen B777-300ERs are out of service while all eight B777-200LRs are in the air. The fleet also includes ten A319-100s, seven A320-200s, ninety-five A320-200Ns, thirteen A321-200s, thirteen A321-200NX, one A321-200NX(LR), six A350-900s, twenty-seven B787-8s and seven B787-9s.