Air India may or may not be my first choice as a carrier, but they are definitely doing things fast enough to get coverage across the globe. Over the past two years, they have been opening up new routes. Some have been so successful that they’ve doubled capacity on those routes as well.
Air India launched Delhi – San Francisco 3 times a week in December 2015, and then doubled frequency to 6 times a week in November 2016. They started a fifth freedom flight between London and Newark, by launching an Ahmedabad – London – Newark flight. They launched flights to Madrid as well in December 2016 and took over the Delhi – Vienna flights from Austrian. I’d say that is a spectacular show given they are going in all directions.
Air India Business Class on the Boeing 777
One of the much anticipated routes from Air India has been a flight between Delhi and Washington DC. Air India already has non-stop flights from India to JFK/Newark, Chicago and San Francisco. The Washington DC Flight was supposed to be announced last year but was not. AI used to operate a tag flight between New York and Washington DC at a point of time. Not anymore.
Air India today tweeted the confirmation of the flight, along with a month as well.
#AINewsFlash: #AI to introduce #DEL–#IAD flight service with #Boeing777 aircrafts in #July2017. #FlyAI
— Air India (@airindiain) January 16, 2017
The Times of India reports that the flight may operate thrice a week. As per the news report:
Come July and the capitals of India and USA will be linked with a direct flight. Air India will have a non-stop service between Delhi and Washington, thrice a week to begin with. The airline will use the Boeing 777 for this route
The flight has not currently gone on sale, and I’m hoping there would be news on that shortly as well. However with AI being AI, they would not announce this flight till all the ends are tied up.
Bottomline
I think this flight would get to have a fair share of the India – USA traffic, given the full flights Air India seems to get on their other routes. I’d also expect this flight to go double down on frequency once the airline is able to stabilize the route.
What do you think about this new flight from Air India, a member of the Star Alliance network?
Do you know what equipment they will be using for these runs? Does AI have 2 spare 777-300ERs or will they be swapping the ERs with the LRs doing the SFO runs?
@Nischal my guess is this would be on the 77Ws, because they would need at least 3 77Ls to run on the SFO flights properly. Oh only if they hadn’t sold those 77Ls to Etihad life would have been different! 😛
Also announced Int’l destinations by AI on twitter:
DEL-CPH (787)
CCU-BKK (Unconfirmed aircraft, probably 320)
DEL-CPH, like DEL-IAD, was also on the radar a long time. Here’s to the success of the new routes !
What is the best way to optimize their frequent flyer program for upgrades or using miles to fly business? I know they are part of * Alliance, but there is not much discussion on AI’s FF program. Thanks!
Ajay Awtaney won’t tell you. He is sponsored by EY. I suggest you to post on flyertalk.