Tata Group-owned Air India on Wednesday announced the launch of new flights connecting Mumbai to New York, Paris and Frankfurt from February next year.
Besides this, the full-service carrier also announced the resumption of non-stop flights connecting Delhi to Copenhagen, Milan and Vienna. Air India said that daily Mumbai-New York (JFK International Airport) service will start from February 14 next year.
Air India said it is making steady progress towards augmenting its fleet with newly leased aircraft and bringing existing aircraft back into active service.
The international expansion comes at a time when Air India is facing shortage of both cockpit and cabin crew.
Amid the shortage, the airline is looking at hiring expatriate pilots and has also offered it to its cabin crew, who retired following the company’s Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) scheme for its permanent employees earlier this year. have opted to be retired, so that their service tenure can be extended by two. months to January 31, 2023.
“A key element of our five-year transformation plan, Vihaan.AI, is to strengthen India’s global network, connecting India’s major cities to even more destinations. The introduction of one-stop flights to Paris and Frankfurt is another step in a journey that will accelerate with the expansion of our aircraft fleet,” said Campbell Wilson, CEO and MD of Air India.
The Mumbai-New York service will complement the airline’s existing daily service from Delhi to New York and four weekly flights to Newark Liberty Airport, it said, adding that it will increase Air India’s India-US frequency to 47 non-stop flights per week. Will take you till
For Europe, Air India will add four weekly Delhi-Milan routes from February 1, and three-weekly flights each on Delhi-Vienna and Delhi-Copenhagen from February 18 and March 1, 2023, respectively.
In addition, new flights are also planned to be launched from Mumbai, to Paris (thrice/week) and Frankfurt (four times/week) from the next quarter.
All these flights will be operated by Air India’s B787-8 Dreamliner aircraft, which has 18 business class and 238 economy class seats.
With the resumption of these flights, Air India said it will serve 79 weekly non-stop flights to seven cities in Europe – 48 to the UK and 31 to continental Europe.