Air India plans nonstop flight between Delhi, Los Angeles from September

NEW DELHI: Hollywood could just be 16 hours away from Delhi. Air India is planning a nonstop on Delhi-Los Angeles route from September. The move comes after the huge success of its San Francisco nonstop with people lapping up this direct service to California. The airline is also planning to start flights to Africa after a gap of several years.
AI chairman Ashwani Lohani said in a Facebook post on Tuesday: “To Washington from 7th July; Stockholm from 15th August and Los Angeles from 1st September to be followed by Tel Aviv, Dallas and Nairobi sometime later during the year 2017 itself.Air India spreads its wings far and wide.”
Apart from Washington, the other dates are tentative from when AI plans to start these flights. A senior airline official said: “There is huge demand for travel between India and the West Coast of US. We are looking at thrice a week nonstop between Delhi and Los Angeles to begin with. The plan for Stockholm is of a similar frequency and nonstop Washington service will also start as three times a week. Our nonstop product is being increasingly chosen by flyers as they want to travel direct (between India and US) and not one or two stops.”
AI already has a daily flight on three US routes — Mumbai-Newark; Delhi-New York and Delhi-Chicago — apart from six times a week on Delhi-San Francisco sector. Apart from Washington, LA and Dallas, it is learnt to be looking at several other American destinations. It also has a one-stop flight on the Ahmedabad-London-New York route.
Airline officials say there is an increasing demand for nonstop connectivity between India and US from passengers. Among US carriers, United is the only one that flies direct but has only two daily flights from Newark to Delhi and Mumbai. And among Indian carriers, only AI flies to US as Jet Airways has withdrawn its service to the “Big Apple”. Apart from AI and Jet, all other airlines offering flights on India-US route are one or two stops through their hubs in Gulf, Europe, Southeast Asia and Canada.
AI is witnessing a surge in demand for its US flights after America disallowed passengers on Gulf carriers — which have the lions' share of traffic on India-US route — from carrying electronics bigger than a mobile phone on the aircraft due to security fears.
The Maharaja is eyeing the US market in a big way through its nonstop product. To bring down due cost, it now flies to the West Cast over the Pacific (over Japan) and returns to India over the Atlantic to avoid headwind and get the benefit of tail winds.