Japan is one of the important ports of call for Indian businesses, and similarly, Japanese companies have also been partnering more and more in India over the years. So, it has always surprised me that for India connections, both JAL and ANA, the two major carriers of Japan, and Indian carriers have not had enough connections. Mumbai has only one direct flight to Tokyo on ANA, Delhi has three flights, one from Air India, JAL and ANA each. Time to fix it, said ANA. There will be a new ANA Chennai Tokyo Flight coming this winter.
Starting in winter 2019, ANA will begin to operate flights from Narita to Chennai, India, marking the first direct connection between Japan and Chennai. This will be the third destination in India that ANA will offer service to.
Here is ANA’s reasoning to add the new flight:
- India sends many visitors to Japan, and demand for travel to the country is increasing annually as economic growth continues. ANA intends to capitalise on this growth by opening the only direct flight from Japan to South India.
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Chennai has the second largest port in India and has an established automobile industry. Chennai is also called the “Detroit of India,” so cargo demand can be anticipated in addition to passenger demand.
Information about the launch date, schedule, aircraft and timing for the start of sales will be announced when it becomes available.
But that is not all, ANA is also going to permanently upgauge their 787-8 flights from Mumbai to a 787-9 flight as of September 1, 2019, which means they go up from 169 seats on the plane to 215 seats. However, premium capacity will be limited as only six more J class seats will come on the plane.
There is also chatter about JAL adding a flight on the Bangalore – Narita segment, but I haven’t heard any confirmed news from JAL at the moment.
Japan is a beautiful country, and we could do with more flights to Japan. This is a good start, and let’s hope JAL adds some flights too! What do you think of the new flights to Tokyo Narita?
It is the Best decision of ANA.Start the operations before others grab it!I would like to be in the First Flight.
Great : Chennai needs more international flights and will also be a gateway to the west .Looking forward to being on board ANA – heard that its service levels are far superior.
Very Good Initiative. Chennai Route will be a very big profit for ANA. There are thousands of passengers travelling to Tokyo from Chennai daily
North America connection will be good.. Does it support stop over like Singapore Airlines? Definitely, I will consider this option…Only thing is that the Japanese pilots should control their drinking 🙂
Very good Intiative .. thousand of people traveling every day via HK, Singapore, Malaysia, Srilanka, Bangkok and Delhi and we are struggled lot lot.. we are happy to hearing that direct flight to Chennai. savings transit hours.. all credit goes to Japan airlines group. Heartfelt thanks ..
Great! I put the chance at 50% to fly on that flight! The other possibilities are CX MAA-HKG and SQ MAA-SIN.
Hello, I saw you mentioned that the service to BOM will see an upgrade to a B789. But at the moment, the service sees both B788 and B789 depending upon the loads, and also needed a clarification on the 395 seat B789 as that seat layout is purely a Domestic/Short Haul configuration. Currently the BOM service sees 169 seat B788’s and 215 seat B789’s.
@Swapnil, you are correct about the capacity. We picked up the domestic variant. now fixed.