With eye on connecting traffic, Air India announces product upgrades, schedule tweaks on its key international routes | Business News
Air India has decided to make changes to its international network schedules for destinations in Southeast Asia, Europe, and Australia in an evident bid to capture more international connecting traffic to and from these regions via its main hub Delhi, and even Mumbai. The Tata group airline on Monday announced a slew of product upgrades and optimised flight schedules for these markets, with most of the changes taking effect in January and February.
The changes will see Air India deploy its best aircraft—including those of the erstwhile Vistara—to key gateways in Southeast Asia and Europe. This would complement the deployment of Air India’s new flagship Airbus A350 and its new leased Boeing 777 aircraft with upgraded cabin interiors on various US and UK routes earlier. Vistara, which was also a Tata group airline and was rated highly as a full-service carrier, merged into Air India in November.
In October, The Indian Express had reported that following the merger with Vistara, Air India will progressively deploy erstwhile Vistara’s as well as its own new and retrofitted aircraft on certain priority routes, both within India and overseas. The idea being to set the customer’s expectations right and offer a superior and consistent product on key routes irrespective of the flight booked.
A few months ago, Air India initiated a $400-million retrofit programme to spruce up and upgrade its legacy narrow-body fleet, much of which was in a rundown state from the airline’s government ownership days. While the narrow-body retrofit programme is likely to be completed by the middle of 2025, a similar refit programme for the carrier’s legacy wide-body fleet is expected to start in the coming year.
“The updates also lead to optimised flight schedules for key international routes to offer greater flexibility to travellers as well as to enable seamless intercontinental travel between North America or Europe and Australia or Southeast Asia via Air India’s hubs in Delhi and Mumbai,” Air India said Monday.
The government as well as major Indian airlines—Air India and IndiGo—want to develop major Indian airports as international hubs with significant international-to-internal connecting traffic. Recent network expansion plans announced by both the large airlines, at least in part, seem to be aligned with that objective.
Delhi-Bangkok: Spruced-up product, additional daily flight
The international product upgrades and optimised schedules will include the introduction of Air India’s retrofitted narrow-body A320 aircraft on all Delhi-Bangkok flights, and an additional daily frequency. These retrofitted aircraft will have fully refreshed interiors in a three-class cabin configuration—economy, premium economy, and business.
Story continues below this ad
“Air India will also begin operating a fourth daily Delhi-Bangkok service from 01 January 2025, increasing frequency on the route from three times daily. The new service leads to evenly spaced departures to and from Bangkok throughout the day, offering both business and leisure travellers more choice,” the Tata group airline said, adding that the increased frequency will help connect Bangkok to several destinations in North America and Europe via Air India’s hub in Delhi.
Product upgrade on Singapore flights from Delhi, Mumbai
The airline has also decided to upgrade the product on its flights and Singapore using erstwhile Vistara aircraft, which offer a superior cabin experience as compared to much of Air India’s legacy fleet. From January 1, Air India will operate a daily Delhi-Singapore flight using the wide-body Boeing 787-9 that were earlier with Vistara, and two daily flights using Vistara’s A321neo aircraft. The airline will also operate two daily Mumbai-Singapore flights using Vistara’s A321neo jets.
The airline has already migrated its legacy Boeing 787 product on its Delhi-Frankfurt and Mumbai-Frankfurt flights to the erstwhile Vistara Boeing 787 planes.
“This optimised fleet deployment (for Delhi-Singapore and Mumbai-Singapore flights) will provide the latest generation cabin interiors, including fully flat beds in Business Class and the consistent availability of Premium Economy on these routes. Air India is amongst the few airlines in Asia to offer fully flat beds on its single-aisle A321neo aircraft in Business Class. These A321neo and B787-9 aircraft offer an immersive inflight entertainment experience on HD screens across cabins as well as WiFi internet connectivity on board,” the airline said.
Story continues below this ad
With these upgrades, the airline believes it will offer convenient connections to travellers to and from Singapore with various destinations in the United States, Canada, and Europe via Delhi or Mumbai.
Optimised schedules for key Europe, Australia routes
From February 1, Air India will optimise the schedule of its Delhi-Frankfurt and Delhi-Paris flights, offering both daytime and night-time departures, against the current daytime departures, in an effort to provide more flexibility to travellers.
The airline has also decided to retime its daily flights on the Delhi-Sydney and Delhi-Melbourne routes to enable “seamless two-way connectivity between Europe and Australia or points in Southeast Asia via Delhi”.
