Air India to connect Mumbai with San Francisco; to up frequencies to Australia

Buoyant over the success of its direct flight to San Francisco from New Delhi, flag carrier Air India may soon connect the American West Coast with the city with a direct flight from this summer. The disinvestment-bound Air India currently operates to San Francisco six-times per week, which will go up to nine flights in a week with three services being planned from Mumbai as part of the airline’s summer schedule, a senior official said.

Besides, the frequency to Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne are also being enhanced to five times a week from four-times and three-times a-week, respectively at present, the official added.

“All our flights to the US are making money barring the one which is to Newark via London. We’ve been seeing consistently good passenger load factor on the US routes. The San Francisco flight is also clocking over 80 per cent seat factor since the launch in December 2015.

“This has prompted to us to connect Mumbai directly with San Francisco and we plan to launch a flight service to the Silicon Valley from the coming summers,”the official said.

The proposed flight will be operated three times a week with a Boeing 777 aircraft, as per the official. Domestic airlines summer schedule starts from late March and goes up to late October. Besides, San Francisco, there are daily flights to New York and Chicago from New Delhi an Newark from Mumbai, as well as three flights a week to Washington from New Delhi. The government-owned airline also flies to Newark via London from Ahmedabad.

“As there is demand for more services to Australia, we are in the process of increasing the frequency of Sydney and Melbourne flight to per week from late March on wards,” the official said.