NEW DELHI: Air India will launch new flights connecting Mumbai with New York, Paris and Frankfurt, and resume nonstops connecting Delhi with Copenhagen, Milan and Vienna.
The airline, that went back to Tata Group earlier this year, is now adding flights by getting long-grounded planes back in the air and leasing more aircraft.
Mumbai-US, direct connectivity, was just a thrice weekly on AI till some months back despite the massive travel demand between these two markets. This will now see a gradual increase as more planes join AI fleet.
Starting February 14, 2023, AI will operate a new service on Mumbai-New York (JFK) on a Boeing 777-200LR. This will be in addition to AI’s existing daily service from Delhi to JFK and four weekly flights to Newark Liberty (EWR) airport, taking the Maharaja’s India-US weekly frequency to 47 nonstops.
To Europe, AI will add four weekly Delhi-Milan from February 1, 2023, and thrice-weekly flights on each Delhi-Vienna and Delhi-Copenhagen from February 18 and March 1, 2023 respectively. From Mumbai, new flights are also planned to Paris (thrice weekly) and Frankfurt (four weekly) starting next quarter.
All these flights will be operated by Air India’s B787-8 Dreamliner aircraft with 18 business and 238 economy seats. With the resumption of these flights, AI will serve 7 cities in Europe with 79 weekly nonstops — 48 to UK and 31 to Continental Europe.
AI CEO-MD Campbell Wilson said: “A key element of our five-year transformation plan, Vihaan.AI, is to strengthen India’s global network, connecting India’s major cities with even more destinations. The introduction of these new non-stop flights to New York, Milan, Vienna, Copenhagen, Paris and Frankfurt, is another step in that journey, which will accelerate as our aircraft fleet expands.”
