Tag Archives: Air India

Air India will operate a non-stop flight from Delhi to Washington from July 7th, 2017, to connect the capitals of India and the USA. This will be the only direct flight connecting Delhi with Washington with a B777-200LR aircraft. Washington will be Air India’s fifth non-stop destination in USA after New York (JFK), Newark (EWR), Chicago (ORD) and San Francisco (SFO). AI 103 will depart from Delhi at 0115 hrs (IST) to reach Washington at 0715 hrs (GMT). While AI 104 will depart from Washington at 1100 hrs (GMT) and will land at IGI airport, Delhi at 1030 +1 hrs (IST). Operating thrice a week on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, the flight will offer a 3-cabin configuration, with 8 seats in First Class, 35 seats in Business Class and 195 seats in Economy Class. The direct flight will take around 15 hours and 30mins to reach Washington from Delhi. Passengers looking to travel and experience the world class facilities with a non-stop Boeing 777 flight can start booking their tickets now through www.airindia.in or through Air India booking offices.

Air India has led the way towards increasing agents livelihood and recognising their distribution channel. Subsequent to an in-depth interaction with the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) and its suggestions made to the national carrier, the airline has announced a new assured incentive/PLB Scheme for the FY 2017-18. Air India will file additional commission of two per cent with BSP and the same will be deducted by agent as cut and pay as per BSP cycle. This will be apart from the normal IATA commission of one per cent. Jyoti Mayal, TAAI member Managing Committee & Chairperson (Airline Council), says, “We really appreciate Air India’s move to recognise and support each and every IATA agent. After a long time, I feel that our industry is regaining its glory. Under the leadership of CMD Ashwani Lohani, we have seen them work very closely with the travel fraternity – first by bringing in credit cards then web parity and now with a level playing field where every agent gets incentivised on selling each and every ticket on Air India. I would now urge all IATA members to support our national carrier to make it a leading carrier in Indian skies. As an Airline Council Chairperson, I would love to see our national airline regaining its glory and profitability. We at TAAI took this initiative with the airline to set standards in the industry and promote all agents.” The incentives shall be calculated on basic fare for domestic and for international it will be calculated on Basic Fare +YQ. There is no target for the scheme and will be valid for all tickets sold within the territory of India by IATA agents …

Air India (AI) has announced that the Indian national carrier will commence flights between India and Israel by May this year. The airline is planning to open the New Delhi-Tel Aviv route with three weekly flights. Commenting on the commencement of the new flight, Ashwani Lohani, Chairman and Managing Director, Air India, reportedly said, “Air India is looking forward to the opening of the direct route to Israel in a few months’ time. I believe that this will have a positive effect on the tourism traffic between our two countries.” Yariv Levin, Minister of Tourism-Israel, reportedly said, “Air India Chairman Lohani was deeply impressed with his visit to Israel and, in his own words, is convinced that the many Indian tourists who will visit Israel will find it an exceptional tourism destination. There is no doubt that the opening of the route, combined with our marketing efforts in India, will generate a significant increase in incoming tourism from India.”

Air India scripted history by flying an all-women crew flight around the world. The flight AI 173 that took off from IGI Airport in Delhi on Feb 27 to San Francisco covering a distance of around 15300 km in 15 and a half hours over the Pacific route and on the return journey from San Francisco over the Atlantic. The flight was in the safe hands of Capt. Sunita Narula, Capt. Kshamta Bajpai, Capt. Indira Singh and Capt. Gunjan Aggarwal. The all-women cabin crew was led by Seema Baberwal and Nishrin Bandulwala. The entire flight was operated by the women staff of eight departments. These departments included Cockpit crew, Cabin crew, Check-In staff, Doctor, Customer Care Staff, ATC and the entire ground handling from operator to technician, Engineer and flight dispatcher and trimmer. Line operation safety audit was done by Harpreet A De Singh, ED Flight Safety, Air India. This is the first time that this audit was done by a female officer for around the world trip.

Air India has become the latest A320neo operator after taking delivery of the first of 14 aircraft leased from Kuwait headquartered ALAFCO Aviation Lease And Finance Company, becoming the first CFM powered NEO operator in India. The delivery is also the first NEO for ALAFCO from an order for 85 A320neo Family. The A320neo will join Air India’s existing fleet of 66 A320 Family aircraft. Through a network of over 45 Indian suppliers, more than 6,000 professionals in India contribute directly and indirectly to all Airbus programmes and every aircraft produced today is partly made in India. The A320neo Family incorporates latest technologies including new generation engines and wing tip devices, which together deliver more than 15 percent in fuel savings from day one and 20 percent by 2020. The A320neo Family is the world’s best-selling single aisle product line with over 5,000 orders from 92 customers since its launch in 2010 capturing almost 60 percent share of the market. Thanks to their widest cabin, all members of the A320neo Family offer unmatched comfort in all classes and Airbus’ 18” wide seats in economy as standard. To date over 70 A320neo have been delivered to 18 customers.

India’s national carrier Air India is looking to add new routes between India and North America. Speaking at the CAPA India Aviation Summit 2017 in Mumbai, Pankaj Srivastava, Director Commercial, Air India, revealed, “We want to expand in North America and are exploring new routes like Houston and Dallas. We currently cut down travel time between the two continents by at least 10 hours.” He added, “There will also be a tenth destination in Europe soon. We are thinking of Scandinavia, and looking at either Glasgow or Copenhagen as options. We are also looking at increasing our flights into Australia and intend to take it to five flights into Sydney and five into Melbourne.”  

The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) received an increase of over 22 per cent in budgetary allocation at Rs 5,167.60 crore in the Union Budget for 2017-18. Out of the ministry’s total allocation, a good chunk will be for Air India, which is to get Rs 1,800 crore. The amount will be extended to the national carrier as part of the bailout package announced by the then UPA government in 2012. Apart from that, the airline will be given Rs 508 crore as part of investment in public enterprises. National airports operator AAI has been allocated Rs 2,543 crore, apart from a budgetary support of Rs 100 crore. The budgetary funds for aviation watchdog DGCA has been stepped up significantly to Rs 230.56 crore for 2017-18. The amount is at Rs 29.67 crore for the current fiscal.

Working on boosting regional connectivity, Air India is starting new domestic routes and beefing up frequency on existing ones. A direct flight service to Port Blair will commence from Delhi in May this year. While responding to the constant public demand, Air India will also add second frequency on Delhi-Nagpur-Delhi, fourth frequency on Delhi-Ahmedabad-Delhi sector in March 2017 and second frequency on Delhi-Leh-Delhi sector in the month of May.

As part of its expansion drive and the success of the Delhi- San Francisco route, Air India is set to start another route to the United States and will start direct flight operations on Delhi-Washington-Delhi route in July 2017. This flight will be the fifth direct connection with the US and shall be operated by Boeing 777 aircraft. In addition to this, in May 2017, Air India is looking to offer a real treat to Indian travelers by connecting Bangkok, one of the most favored tourist destinations by starting direct flight operations on Chandigarh-Bangkok-Chandigarh and Kolkata-Bangkok-Kolkata sectors besides starting a second frequency from Delhi.

Air India has launched a new flight from Delhi to Kochi to Dubai, which would be starting from February 1, 2017, revealed Ashwani Lohani, CMD, Air India. Talking at an informal meeting, he said, “The Delhi-Kochi sector is an important an busy sector and hence the new flight has been started. This would further offer connection to Dubai, allowing people from Kochi to go to Dubai, which too is a popular route.” Other than that he revealed that in the international sector Air India will be starting a total of 6 routes and around 22 flights in the regional sector, which would eventually come under the government’s Regional Connectivity Scheme.