Air India will significantly upgrade its Delhi – Toronto route beginning August 1, 2026, with the deployment of its newest Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. The move not only introduces the airline’s latest premium cabin products to Canada for the first time, but also allows the carrier to eliminate the technical fuel stop at Vienna on the westbound sector, cutting journey times by almost three hours. Toronto will hence become the latest long-haul destination to receive the airline’s newest-generation cabin.
Non-stop westbound flights return
For the past several months, Air India’s Delhi-Toronto service has been making an en route technical halt at Vienna while operating westbound. The stop became necessary because of a combination of longer routings, geopolitical airspace restrictions and higher fuel requirements (think Pakistan Airspace and Middle East Troubles).
Air India’s 787-9 Aircraft
From August 1, 2026, subject to the availability of suitable airspace, AI187 will once again operate non-stop from Delhi to Toronto using the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. Flight time will reduce from roughly 20 hours, including the Vienna stop, to approximately 17 hours.
The return flight from Toronto to Delhi has already been operating non-stop and will continue to do so, with a scheduled journey time of around 16 hours. The airline is also restoring the route to a daily schedule after temporarily reducing operations to five weekly flights during June and July 2026 because of elevated fuel costs and operational challenges. Here is the schedule effective August 1, 2026.
Canada’s first taste of Air India’s newest Dreamliner
While the shorter flying time is welcome news, the bigger story is arguably the aircraft itself. Toronto becomes the latest North American destination to receive Air India’s factory-fresh Boeing 787-9 aircraft, which feature the airline’s completely redesigned interiors. Unlike the legacy Dreamliners currently in the fleet, these aircraft were delivered directly from Boeing with Air India’s new cabin installed at the factory.
The aircraft is configured with 296 seats across three cabins:
- 30 Business Class suites
- 28 Premium Economy seats
- 238 Economy Class seats
This also marks the introduction of Premium Economy on Air India’s India-Canada services, giving travellers another option between Business and Economy on one of the airline’s longest routes.
A significantly upgraded passenger experience
The aircraft brings Air India’s latest long-haul product to Canada. Business Class passengers receive fully enclosed suites with direct aisle access, 79-inch fully-flat beds, wireless charging, generous storage spaces and 17-inch 4K QLED HDR entertainment screens.
Air India Business Class on the 787-9
Premium Economy offers wider seats in a 2-3-2 configuration with 38 inches of pitch, enhanced recline, adjustable leg rests and 13.3-inch entertainment screens. Even Economy receives a notable upgrade with redesigned ergonomically contoured seats, personal device holders and 11.6-inch 4K displays.
Across all cabins, passengers will have access to Air India’s newest Thales AVANT Up inflight entertainment platform with more than 3,000 hours of content, Bluetooth audio connectivity, USB-A and USB-C charging ports, universal AC power and significantly improved touchscreen responsiveness.
Although, as noted earlier, there is still no Wi-Fi fitout on these aircraft, the aircraft flies with some Economy seats blocked, and the Business Class cabin has the doors open rather than closed during flight.
Another step in Air India’s North America strategy
The Toronto deployment continues Air India’s strategy of gradually introducing its newest premium products across key international markets as additional Boeing 787-9 aircraft join the fleet. Over the past few months, the airline has progressively assigned its new product (on the 787-9s and the retrofit 787-8s) to destinations in Europe. Canada now joins that growing list.
Toronto remains one of Air India’s most important overseas destinations, serving one of the world’s largest Indian diaspora communities. The route has traditionally been among the airline’s flagship North American services, making it a logical choice for one of its newest aircraft.
The removal of the fuel stop is also a welcome operational improvement. Besides reducing travel time by nearly three hours, it eliminates the inconvenience of a technical halt, allowing passengers to enjoy a true non-stop journey between Delhi and Toronto once again.
Bottomline
Air India’s Delhi-Toronto route is getting a meaningful upgrade from August 1, 2026. The deployment of the airline’s new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner not only restores true non-stop westbound operations by eliminating the Vienna fuel stop but also introduces Air India’s latest Business Class suites, Premium Economy cabin and next-generation inflight entertainment to the Canadian market for the first time. Coupled with the restoration of daily flights, it represents another visible step in Air India’s ongoing transformation of its long-haul network.
What do you think of the true long-haul flights with the 787-9 finally for Air India?
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@Ajay Any idea on if they might upgrade SFO at some point? Probably only once the A350-1000 is inducted right? It seems to have stuck for a while on the business class seats!
@A, seems to be the plan. Except that if it will be for bird 1/2 or bird 3/4, we don’t know
Unfortunately, the aircraft is going to get torn up and dilapidated on this route. Why did they not deploy this to one of their US routes instead?
Great news. Any refueling stop that can be removed is great. And of course, massive product upgrade + PE on ULH is suitable.
16h 5m block time seems tight though. Currently ~16h 15m is the flying time. Of course the 789 will save time, but by 1 hour? I hope their calculations are right.
Also, DEL-JFK is currently slightly shorter than DEL-YYZ, A359 has slightly longer range, so why isn’t DEL-JFK nonstop?
B-LRQ, I believe they are hoping for a new route that allows bypassing Pakistan (via China) to fly north and then turn left. Still not approved though.
But that would be like 14 hours to YYZ, not 17. As far as I know, there is no development on that. Seems unlikely that they’ll get it, at least by Aug 1st.
@BLRQ I guess we have to wait and see how it goes