New Delhi: State-owned Air India has postponed deploying its new Dreamliner aircraft on the Delhi-Sydney-Melbourne route , one of the largest unserved ones, till the first quarter of 2013. The earlier plan was to start from October, a month after Boeing began delivering the much-awaited planes.
Instead AI is flying these to Frankfurt, Dubai and and some domestic destinations. The India-Australia route doesn’t have even a single non-stop flight from either an Indian or Australian carrier, despite the Air Service Agreement between the two countries permitting 6,500 seats a week and access to 10 cities.
The delay is another boost to foreign carriers such as Singapore Airlines and Malaysian Airlines , which dominate this route. AI operated between India and Sydney until 1991.
It had filed for landing and take-off slots to operate Delhi-Sydney-Melbourne from October with the new planes, confirmed an executive. About the delay, the executive said, “With Australia being a tourist destination, the bookings for December were already over.
22/11/12 Disha Kanwar/Business Standard
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Instead AI is flying these to Frankfurt, Dubai and and some domestic destinations. The India-Australia route doesn’t have even a single non-stop flight from either an Indian or Australian carrier, despite the Air Service Agreement between the two countries permitting 6,500 seats a week and access to 10 cities.
The delay is another boost to foreign carriers such as Singapore Airlines and Malaysian Airlines , which dominate this route. AI operated between India and Sydney until 1991.
It had filed for landing and take-off slots to operate Delhi-Sydney-Melbourne from October with the new planes, confirmed an executive. About the delay, the executive said, “With Australia being a tourist destination, the bookings for December were already over.
22/11/12 Disha Kanwar/Business Standard
