Air India is withdrawing its Bengaluru – San Francisco and Mumbai – San Francisco services starting March 2026. There has been a lot of speculation around why the Bengaluru – San Francisco and Mumbai – San Francisco routes are being discontinued by Air India. This is the longest route from Bengaluru and the only non-stop to Americas and thus people are up in arms on social media against the move by Air India. Discussions revolve around passenger numbers, yields, revenue, air fare and a lot more. Before we proceed with anything, it is important to revisit what I keep saying
Good loads does not mean high fares, high fares does not mean high yield, high yield does not mean high revenue, high revenue does not mean profits.
The hue and cry is natural. We live in times when cities which don’t have airports want an airport and cities which have established connections want new and more flights. Obviously, nobody likes to let go of a connection or an operational airport.
Air India launched non-stop flights between Bengaluru and San Francisco in January 2021, in the middle of COVID in what was known as “air bubbles”. The flight was subsequently withdrawn. In January 2022, Air India’s ownership moved to the Tata group. It inherited a lot of grounded planes. Air India and its fleet conundrum continued. While it announced an order for 470 planes in February 2023, it also announced leasing five former Delta B777-200LRs, in three class configuration. Along with its legacy B777-200LRs, at its peak Air India had eight LRs in its fleet which helped the airline operate 10x weekly to San Francisco from Delhi, and thrice a week each from Mumbai and Bengaluru. Air India had announced that it would induct six B777-300ERs from Singapore Airlines, which never saw the light of the day. Even as the Russian airspace remained out of bounds for Western carriers, Air India continued using the airspace and on two occasions even diverted to airports in Russia. Come April 2025, terrorists attacked Pahalgam killing innocent tourists. This led to Operation Sindoor, a military operation against terrorist targets in Pakistan. Pakistan has since closed all its airspace for airlines from India, impacting multiple flights but mainly the Ultra Long Haul flights. This coincided with the withdrawal of legacy B777-200LRs from Air India’s fleet, which were sold much earlier. The ex-Delta planes, which were a stop gap arrangement, have also started leaving the fleet with the last ones expected to exit in the next 60 days.
Wait.. the airspace closure impacts Delhi more, but Bengaluru and Mumbai are losing flights?
The impact is mainly felt in Delhi but is impacting other sectors as well, especially Bengaluru and Mumbai. With tech stops becoming a norm, Air India started with stops at Vienna, later moving it to Kolkata. However, Kolkata has to undergo runway recarpeting. The one which is capable has to undergo runway recarpeting. Delhi is the largest hub of Air India and one around which its entire international and domestic bank is centered. Incremental capacity addition from Delhi has far more returns than any other increases, since most of the costs are already absorbed.
Operational matters are supreme. Air India, without a base at Bengaluru, rotates the aircraft via San Francisco. It had earlier rotated it via Mumbai which saw domestic operations with the B777-200LR between Mumbai and Bengaluru. With a limited number of aircraft available, the choice obviously is to have a strong base and hub at Delhi, rather than scattered operations. Planes don’t get younger by the day, and for an older fleet to have concentrated operations from a single base helps with swaps, maintenance, parts and maintaining operations fairly on-time with easier recovery, than having scattered bases and managing IRROPS (Irregular Operations) when need arises. Given that there is a shortage of planes, if you have to let go of a route, which one would you let go? The one which makes the lowest profit, the one which is most difficult to operate, the one which is not significant in terms of market share for you? There is never a right answer in airline network planning and more often a combination of multiple factors decide which route takes the cut. Add to that the trip cost of operating the B777-300ER to San Francisco from Bengaluru, with a tech stop which adds to the cycles and thus leads to maintenance cycles shifting significantly, the compounded effect is higher.
From an airline perspective, this is a wonderful decision given the shortage of planes that it finds itself in. The airline has a lot of work to do on this side, while it continues to hide behind the “supply chain” issues. Its A320neo fleet refurbishment did not end on time, and the 787-8 seems to be headed the same way. Overall, the whole program is now delayed beyond the five year period when the entire turnaround was announced. The top management and the board, probably needs to focus on the repeated announcements which are not met. It shows the gap between what the market knows and what the management knows, unless the announcements are filled with hope.
While people debate the yields and revenue, the fact remains that no airline pulls out profitable flights from the network at any cost. Profitability comes at various levels, from operational to EBITDA and at total cost. Then there comes the “What if” analysis where the cost of operating a thrice a week service is weighed by adding capacity from Delhi, the largest hub and market from India? There also remains the fact that the Trump government’s policies around visas and tariffs have had an impact on the traffic which would pinch every airline and the true extent of it will be known over a period of time.
Will this route come back when the airline has more planes and planes which are capable of flying non-stop? With a one-stop Air India had come comparable with most other airlines, albeit without deplaning and connecting to another aircraft.
Coming Soon: How will Air India utilise its B777s post March 2026?
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