National carrier Air India today announced non-stop flights to San Francisco from its hub and Indian capital New Delhi to be operated by the B777-200LR aircraft. The flights will start on 2nd December’15 and would operate thrice a week on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
This will be the first non-stop to San Francisco and will be fourth destination for Air India in the United States of America. Air India, a Star Alliance member already operates non stop flights to New York – JFK and Chicago from New Delhi and to Newark from Mumbai.
The airline has not gone ahead with its re-configuration plan for the B777-200LR and will operate the flight in three class configurations with 8 First Class Seats, 35 Business Class seats and 195 economy class seats. The airline currently has three B777-200LR in its fleet which will most likely see full utilization when the flights start.
The timings are expected to be in sync with current departures of the non stop flights
AI127 DEL0220 – 0725ORD
AI101 DEL0145 – 0725JFK
AI191 BOM0130 – 0755EWR
The flight will connect both ways to Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Bengaluru and Pune. There is no clarity if the flight would extend to Bengaluru like the existing flights to USA which extend to Hyderabad, Mumbai and Ahmedabad.
The flight will strengthen the departure bank for Air India at New Delhi and hope expand its code share with Star Alliance members.
NetworkThoughts 