Air India restructures operations to US, Europe

New Delhi: Public sector Air India on Thursday said it has taken a major initiative towards strengthening its global network, restructuring its operations to the US and Europe and by making Frankfurt its operational hub.
"To begin with, Chicago and New York would offer more convenient connections to originating traffic from a larger geographical area in India, with the Chicago flight now set to operate from Delhi," Air India executive director (southern region) EA Varghese told reporters here.
He said the passengers who wish to travel from New Delhi to New York would be transferred to the Mumbai-New York flight at Frankfurt. Likewise fliers from Mumbai who wish to go to Chicago would be tranferred to the Delhi-Chicago flight at Frankfurt
and the connections at Frankfurt would be immediate, he added.
Varghese said all these flights would be operated with state of the art 342 seater B777-300ER aircraft, configured in three classes. Further he added that flight schedules have been so drawn that passengers could depart from India at about 1 am from Mumbai/Delhi, arrive in Frankfurt at about 6 pm and depart at around 8 pm for arrival at Chicago/New York at 10.30 am, thus providing fastest connectivity between India and the US.
Varghese informed that Air India would soon launch a non-stop Delhi-San Franscisco flight later this year after inducting three new Boeing 777LR aircraft between June-August 2009.
On the company's proposal to induct new flights he said, the airline presently has over 150 aircraft, including 45 inducted in the past 18 months.
19/03/09 PTI/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Air India - International Mar 2009, Foreign Mar 2009, NACIL Mar 2009