Air India, owned by the Tata Group, has received its first Boeing 787-9 aircraft custom-made for the airline, nearly four years after its privatisation. The aircraft title was transferred on January 7, 2026, at Boeing’s factory in Seattle. After safety inspections by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the plane will arrive in India in the coming days. This new Dreamliner has a three-class layout: economy, premium economy, and business class. It is Air India’s first line fit Dreamliner since October 2017, when the airline was government-owned. Officials confirmed this 787-9 is the first wide-body and 52nd Boeing plane delivered out of the 220 jets ordered in 2023. Air India Express has already added 51 narrow-body Boeing 737-8 jets, including their first line fit plane received in December 2025. Since the Tata takeover in January 2022, Air India has placed orders for 350 Airbus and 220 Boeing planes. Out of these, 6 Airbus A350s have joined the fleet, and 32 Dreamliners (26 B787-8s and 6 B787-9s) from the merged Vistara also serve Air India. Currently, the Air India Group operates over 300 aircraft, with 185 under Air India and the rest with Air India Express. The airline expects a dozen more refreshed legacy Dreamliners to return to service during 2026. In November 2025, CEO Campbell Wilson said the group plans to induct 26 wide-body and narrow-body planes and run 81% of its international flights with upgraded aircraft by the end of 2026.