Air India on Friday announced 20 additional flights every week to Birmingham, London and San Francisco in a bid to bolster its international footprint. The airline said the additional flights to the three destinations would be introduced in a phased manner from October to December this year.
With the addition of five additional flights to Birmingham, nine to London and six to San Francisco, Air India is claiming to offer over 5,000 additional seats every week.
The five additional flights to Birmingham will include three from Delhi and two from Amritsar. Out of nine additional flights to London, five would be from Mumbai, three from Delhi and one from Ahmedabad. Altogether, seven Indian cities will now have non-stop Air India flights to the UK’s capital.
The Tata group-owned airline will now connect Mumbai with San Francisco with a thrice-weekly service and reinstate a three-times-weekly Bengaluru operation.
Campbell Wilson, CEO & MD, Air India, said, “This sizable frequency increase to the US and the UK, as well as the addition of new city pairs and improved aircraft cabin interiors, comes just 10 months after Air India’s acquisition by the Tata Group. It is a clear signal of our intent and an early step towards a much bigger aspiration.”
With this, Air India’s current schedule of 34 flights every week to the UK will now go up to 48 flights, and the US will increase from 34 to 40 per week.
Air India has already enabled frequency increases between Delhi and Vancouver and the addition of numerous domestic services.
In addition to leasing new aircraft, the airline has been working to restore existing narrow-body and wide-body aircraft to the operating fleet. Air India, in its press release, said that this is part of the airline’s ongoing endeavour to reclaim its position as a leader on the international aviation map.
First Published: Sept 30, 2022 12:37 PM IST
