Air India expands its US, Europe network with new non-stop flights

To operate new Mumbai-New York flights; resume flights to Copenhagen, Milan, Vienna from Delhi

Air India is expanding its flights to the United States and Europe, including new flights between Mumbai and New York. The carrier is also resuming its flights to Copenhagen, Milan and Vienna from Delhi in February and March next year.

This expansion comes as the airline continues to make progress in augmenting its fleet with newly leased aircraft, and the return of existing aircraft to active service. 

The new Mumbai-New York service will operate daily to JFK Airport using B777-200LR aircraft, and will commence February 14.  This takes Air India’s India-US frequency to 47 non-stop flights per week. 

Air India will be the only carrier offering non-stop service to New York-Newark airports from Mumbai after United pulled out of the route due to the Ukraine war. Similarly, it will be the only carrier to operate non-stop from Mumbai to San Francisco with the service to be launched next month. Air India will also fly from Mumbai to Frankfurt and Paris from the next quarter.

Routes, an aviation route development-focused company, reported on Monday that there were around 138,090 two-way passengers between Mumbai and San Francisco in 2019, all of whom travelled indirectly.

The report, which quoted Sabre Market Intelligence Data, said that the biggest hubs for travel between Mumbai and San Francisco were Dubai, Hong Kong and Beijing.

"The addition of JFK will increase the number of round trips between the cities (Mumbai-New York) to 10 per week and the number of available two-way (weekly) seats from 2,052 to 5,384," Routes said in its online report.

Commenting on this expansion, Campbell Wilson, CEO and MD, Air India, 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."