AI non-stop link soon for Delhi-San Francisco

New Delhi: Starting this autumn, National Aviation Co. of India Ltd-run Air India will start flying between New Delhi and San Francisco—the longest non-stop flight between India and the US by any carrier.
The longest Air India flight operates between Mumbai and New York.
Air India is inducting seven Boeing Co.-made long-haul aircraft to its fleet of 154 this year and plans to start several other flights using Frankfurt airport as its European hub from end-March.
The date for starting the San Francisco service has not been decided but it will be only after August, Air India’s executive director Jitender Bhargava said.
New international routes planned include daily New Delhi-Frankfurt-Chicago and Ahmedabad-Mumbai-Frankfurt-Newark from the summer, besides Ahmedabad-Frankfurt and Amritsar-Frankfurt-Toronto from winter.
“Some of these flights are already available in the (reservation) system,” said a senior Air India executive, who didn’t want to be named, adding that the airline plans to shuffle its network in a way that domestic flights feed into the international flights at Indian metro airports and converge in Frankfurt to take the traffic forward, providing a wider choice of international destinations.
The increase in flights comes despite a slowdown in global travel. India’s international air traffic between April to November last year expanded 9.4% at a time when domestic passenger traffic shrank by the same rate, according to data from civil aviation ministry.
Four Boeing 777-200LR planes will join Air India’s fleet between July and September. Three more Boeing 777-200ER will join by August.
28/02/09 Tarun Shukla/Livemint

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Categories: Air India - International Feb 2009, Foreign Feb 2009, NACIL Feb 2009