Air India’s decision to split its 2023 fleet buy between Airbus and Boeing is not a quirk of procurement. It is a deliberate risk management move that reads well to anyone who has had to keep an airline flying through parts shortages, maintenance bottlenecks, or regulatory shocks. The headline numbers are large: the letters of intent announced in February and the purchase agreements signed at the Paris Air Show committed Air India to a combined 470 aircraft split roughly between 250 Airbus and 220 Boeing jets.

From an operational point of view the most important detail is the mix. The order includes Airbus A350 widebodies and A320neo family narrowbodies alongside Boeing 787 and the future 777X widebodies and 737 MAX narrowbodies. That mix gives Air India multiple sources for frames, engines and aftermarket support rather than a single supply chain to rely on. That matters because modern jet delivery schedules are brittle: component suppliers, engine makers and cabin-equipment vendors all have their own constraints that can ripple through an airline’s rollout plan.

History gives a few blunt lessons on why you do not want your entire future fleet tied to one OEM. Regulatory groundings and production halts can take entire subtypes out of service or slow deliveries to a crawl. The 737 MAX grounding episode remains a clear example of how an airframe fleet can be suddenly constrained by safety and regulatory actions, leaving operators scrambling for capacity and replacements. Dual sourcing reduces the chance that a single program-level problem will strand most of your new capacity.

Supply-chain realities in early 2023 reinforce the point. Industry reporting through the year showed that planemakers and suppliers were still working through post pandemic bottlenecks in engines, cabin equipment and aerostructures, creating real delivery uncertainty for airlines planning major fleet renewals. Buying from both OEMs gives Air India optionality if one production line slips while the other keeps pace.

All that said, dual sourcing is not a free lunch. There are clear operational tradeoffs that need active management:

  • Training complexity. Different types mean more type ratings, simulator hours and instructor resources. If you plan to operate both A320-family and 737-family jets on the same short haul network, you must budget extra crew training days and manage crew rostering so that qualified crews are available where the aircraft are flown. That affects short term capacity planning during ramp up.

  • Maintenance and spares inventory. Two airframe families and two sets of engine types multiply the number of spare parts you must stock or secure under contract. Without disciplined forecasting and supplier agreements you can easily see cannibalisation or AOG events that undercut the benefit of diversification.

  • Fleet commonality and unit economics. Wider commonality reduces training and inventory cost and increases dispatch reliability. Air India will need to balance the efficiency loss of mixed types against the operational protection offered by having two suppliers.

If you are running operations and want this strategy to work in practice, here are pragmatic steps to take.

1) Sequence deliveries to protect network reliability. Schedule the earliest deliveries so they fill critical gaps rather than simply arriving in greatest numbers. Early narrowbody arrivals should be used to stabilize domestic flying while widebodies are stretched into long haul. Staggering also eases the initial training and spares burden.

2) Lock in robust long term material services. Flight hour, rotable pools and on-site spares agreements with OEMs and third party MROs turn inventory risk into a predictable cost. For a carrier taking delivery of both Airbus and Boeing widebodies it is economically sensible to secure component support lines for both engine families and to position on-site stock at major hubs.

3) Optimize training and cross-qualification. Use mixed fleet crew rostering tools and invest in multi-crew cooperation and systems commonality training where sensible. Cross-qualification strategies such as line training pools and convertible type-rating pathways reduce simulator demand peaks.

4) Plan for leasing and short term bridges. If deliveries slip, a mix of short-term wet or dry leases can protect network commitments. Having pre-negotiated leasing frameworks for both Airbus and Boeing types shortens time-to-lease when the unexpected occurs.

5) Tight coordination with OEMs and suppliers. Monthly operational delivery reviews, clear acceptance and redelivery criteria, and joint mitigation plans with avionics, engine and cabin suppliers reduce surprises. If one vendor signals a delay, trigger the contingency that shifts traffic to the unaffected fleet where possible.

6) Preserve optionality within engine and configuration choices. Where possible pick common avionics suites, similar cabin standards and compatible ground tooling to limit the number of unique parts and ground handling variations. That lowers the day-to-day operational workload.

From a safety and continuity perspective the dual-sourcing strategy is a sensible hedge. It is an insurance policy against concentrated supplier disruption. From a financial and operational perspective it increases complexity that must be actively managed. For line pilots and schedulers the practical result should be more reliable capacity and fewer ad hoc cancellations caused by single supplier shortages. For the airline senior team the result will only be positive if procurement, crew training and maintenance plan in lockstep with the delivery schedules.

Air India’s 2023 procurement shows the airline is buying not just planes but flexibility. The move hedges production risk, regulatory shock risk and the cadence problems that followed the global supply chain shakeup. The final measure of success will be whether the airline can convert that procurement optionality into steady, reliable operations at the scale it needs. If they execute the training, spares and supplier-management pieces with discipline, dual sourcing will have done its job as practical insurance for a large and complicated fleet renewal.