Air India to get Boeing 787 by 4th quarter of '11

Aircraft major Boeing on announced on Wednesday Air India would receive the delivery of its first Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the firm's most fuel efficient carrier, in the fourth quarter of 2011.

The Air India delivery would follow the first delivery to Japanese airline Air Nippon Airways, slated for the third quarter of this year, Boeing India president Dinesh Keskar said in Bengaluru.

The project to deliver the commercial jets is almost three years behind schedule.

The company would deliver a total of 27 Boeing 787s, a midsized aircraft, to Air India and 10 to Jet Airways.

However, he refused to specify the time frame for the remaining deliveries.

He said Jet Airways will have to wait for the delivery as the airline had placed its orders much after Air India.

"The 787 is a game changer and will give our customers an advantage," he said on the sidelines of the Aero India 2011.

The company had orders for 847 Boeing 787s from 57 customers across the world as of the end of 2010.

"Out of which 21 customers had given a 188 follow on order," he said.

On the outlook for Indian aviation in the next 20 years, he said it would need 1,150 commercial jets valued at $130 billion, about four per cent of Boeing's commercial airplanes' world wide forecast.