Things are starting to move quite quickly with Air India. After having announced one of the world’s biggest plane orders at the Paris air show, the airline finalised the acquisition of its first A350 and is opening up new routes. That last point is exactly what we’ll be talking about in this post today as the Indian national carrier prepares to launch its new Kolkata to Bangkok service, flight number AI322. Let’s find out all about it.
- Why The Choice of Bangkok?
- The Flight Launch Date and Schedule
- The Plane for The New Air India Kolkata to Bangkok Flight
Why The Choice of Bangkok?
The number one reason for opening this new flight from Kolkata to Bangkok is travel demand of course. The two cities have huge populations therefore make for an intuitive connection between them. Along with that first reason is the fact that Thailand is an extremely attractive destination for tourism.
Finally though the third reason though is that Air India has a standing interline agreement with Bangkok Airways on 10 in Thailand and neighbouring countries Laos and Cambodia. That means that passengers can seamlessly connect onwards from Bangkok or towards Kolkata, with the two airlines feeding traffic to each other.
The Schedule of The New Air India Kolkata to Bangkok Flight
Flights will start operating almost immediately, with the first service taking off from Kolkata on October 23rd 2023. The flight will be available every day of the week except for Sundays.
The scheduling of the flight is quite a tough one on passengers but particularly on crew. The flight is one of those turnarounds that cabin and flight crew just hate to operate throughout the night. Here’s why:
| Flight Number | Departure Airport | Airport Code | Departure Time | Arrival Airport | Airport Code | Arrival Time | Flight Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | AI322 | Kolkata | CCU | 22:00 | Bangkok | BKK | 02:05+1 | 2hrs 35min |
| AI321 | Bangkok | BKK | 03:05 | Kolkata | CCU | 04:10 | 2hrs 35min |
Landing at 2AM in Bangkok, even taking into account the longish drive to downtown, means that you’ll be at your hotel crazy early in the morning effectively having to waste part of your first day on recovering some sleep. But hey, that’s just my take on the flight scheduling.
The Plane for The New Air India Kolkata to Bangkok Flight AI322
Air India announced it will be using its Airbus A320 narrow body family of planes on this sector. From what we can see so far, initially the airline plans to deploy its smallest A320 family jet on the flight the A319.
As there are business class seats for sale on this flight it is likely that the planes chosen will be those configured with 2 travel classes. These Air India A319s feature:
- 8 Business Class Seats
- 114 Economy Class Seats
The Business class seats are recliners and are laid out with 4 abreast in a 2-2 configuration. Economy class features the standard narrow body 3-3 layout instead.
