It’s hard to keep up with the news in terms of network expansions that airlines across the world are undertaking. This time the news comes from India’s flag carrier Air India which announced a significant network expansion. The Indian carrier is to resume some of it’s pre pandemic operations and commence some other totally new ones. Let’s take a closer look into Air India’s latest news.
Air India Resumes Flights from Delhi to Copenhagen Vienna and Milan
2023 will mark the return of Air India to a significant amount of cities in Europe.
- Delhi Milan will start operations on February 1st with a 4 times weekly frequency. Air India flight AI137 will fly out of Delhi at 14:20 arrive into Milan (MXP) at 18:45 and fly out as AI138 at 20:00 to land back in India at 8:00 AM the next morning.
- Delhi Vienna will commence operations on February 18th with a 3 time weekly frequency. Flight number AI153 will fly out of Delhi at 14:35 arrive into Vienna at 18:45 and fly back as AI154 at 20:15 arriving into DEL at 08:05AM the next morning.
- Delhi Copenhagen will commence operations on March 1st with a 3 time weekly frequency. Flight number AI157 will fly out of Delhi at 13:30 arrive into Vienna at 19:50 and fly back as AI158 at 19:50 arriving into DEL at 07:40AM the next morning.
Air India also has in its plans to add further European flights from Mumbai Airport later in 2023. In particular it will be starting to operate flights from Mumbai to:
- Paris (3 times a week)
- Frankfurt (4 times a week)
All these European flights will be served by Air India’s 787-8 Dreamliners. These will feature a 2 class configuration with:
- 18 Business Class seats
- 238 Economy Class seats
Boosting Capacity to New York
The Indian flag carrier is also ready to increase capacity to New York City in 2023. Starting February 14th 2023 the airline will start a daily service to New York’s JFK Airport.
This flight will complement the 4 times weekly service that AI already operates to Newark’s Liberty Airport. This additional flight will be operated by one of the airline’s ULR planes, specifically the Boeing 777-200LR.
The flight will operate following this schedule:
- Flight AI119 will depart Mumbai at 00:55 on a daily basis and arrive into New York’s JFK at 06:55
- AI116 will make the return trip departing JFK at 10:55 arriving into Mumbai at 11:35 the next day.
Further Expansion will Come With New Additions to Fleet
The airline has also made clear that further capacity and new routes will open as Air India takes delivery of ordered and newly leased flights in the coming months and throughout 2023.
If performance is satisfactory on these flights to Europe and the US it is likely to see AI add new flights to more and more cities across the globe. Particularly so if demand for air travel continues to grow in 2023.
