Air India to fly from Mumbai to Frankfurt, New York, and Paris
Tata Group-owned Air India on Wednesday announced the launch of flights connecting Mumbai with New York, Paris and Frankfurt, starting February next year.
The full-service carrier also announced the resumption of non-stop flights connecting Delhi with Copenhagen, Milan, and Vienna.
The Mumbai-New York (JFK International Airport) daily service will commence on February 14 next year, according to the airline.
Air India said it continues to make progress in augmenting its fleet with newly-leased aircraft, and the return of existing aircraft to active service.
The international expansion comes even as Air India is grappling with a shortage of both cockpit and cabin crew.
Amid this shortage, the airline aims to hire expat pilots and has also offered its cabin crew, who have opted to retire following the company’s Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) scheme for its permanent employees earlier this year, to extend their service tenure by two months to January 31, 2023.
“A key element of our fiveyear transformation plan, Vihaan.AI, is to strengthen India’s global network, connecting India’s major cities with even more destinations. The introduction of these new nonstop flights to New York, Milan, Vienna, Copenhagen, Paris and
Frankfurt, is another step in that journey, which will accelerate as our aircraft fleet expands,” said Campbell Wilson, CEO and MD, Air India.
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 this will take Air India’s India-US frequency to 47 non-stop flights per week.
To Europe, Air India will add four weekly Delhi-Milan route starting from February 1, and thrice-weekly flights on each of Delhi-Vienna and Delhi-Copenhagen commencing from February 18 and March 1, 2023 respectively, the airline added.
Besides, from Mumbai, flights are also planned to Paris (three times/week) and Frankfurt (four times/week) starting next quarter, it said.