Civil aviation ministry has asked the debt-ridden state-owned carrier Air India to fly to new long distance routes if the national carrier gets the government?s nod to go ahead with the purchase of Boeing 787 aircraft.

?Aircraft purchases cannot be an arbitrary decision,” said an official from the ministry on condition of anonymity. ?The airline has to have a plan on how to make the aircraft purchase profitable and we have communicated the same to them.?

?Air India?s fleet of wide-body aircraft is quite young and any purchase of Boeing 787 has to be commercially viable,? he added. ?We need to know that Air India will use the new aircraft efficiently and perhaps even deploy them on new routes.?

People familiar with the development in the ministry said Air India will have to come up with a viable plan to use 787 planes on new routes and try to develop Delhi or Mumbai airports as a hub to connect countries in Europe, East Asia and Australia.

India could be a natural hub, says Kishore Jaleel, a former Emirates? international affairs analyst. India, however, will have to compete with super efficient hubs like Singapore and Dubai. ?Our notoriety goes a long way back.?

?Global surveys say that a large number of passengers prefer a break in journey during a super long flight, he added. According to him, this would make India a perfect stop-over destination for flights like London-Melbourne or London-Singapore and more such flights.

?We want to know whether Air India will be able to use New Delhi or Mumbai as a hub to connect the East to the West and vice-versa, says the same ministry official quoted earlier in the story on condition of anonymity. ?The airline has to have such plans in place to compete with domestic and global airlines in order to fully utilise the 787 fleet, if and when it gets it.?

?Destinations like Australia and other countries in South East Asia are very popular routes, specially with the number of students going to Australia, an analyst said.

?How much will such routes potentially help Air India depends on how efficient it is.? The analyst cannot be quoted as he is not authorised to speak to media on unlisted companies. ?But it should add at least 5% to its topline purely on incremental bookings,? he added.