Many Air India flights between North America and India are no longer nonstop due to route adjustments with refueling stops in view of the continued closure of Pakistan airspace. The rerouting of US-India flights in order to bypass the restricted airspace has increased not only total travel hours but also fuel consumption each trip. Initially, Air India’s operating costs soared due to refueling stops, additional ground time, and extra landing fees in Vienna, Austria. If it were to continue, it would have strained the airline’s revenue by incurring losses in millions of dollars.
As cost-effective alternatives to Vienna, Air India has started using Mongolian airspace and taking fueling stops within India for some of its 71 weekly North America flights to and from India. This strategic shift is aimed at reducing the soaring operational overheads and cutting down on excess travel time without compromising passenger safety and regulatory compliance. Mostly, Air India flights from San Francisco to Delhi and Vancouver to Delhi are being rerouted through the Mongolian airspace.
Those who have Air India flights from SFO to Bengaluru in June or July 2025 should brace themselves for longer flying times, 23-28 hours. Some flights (180|2845/2603) from San Francisco have two pitstops – Kolkata (CCU) and Mumbai (BOM) – en route to Bengaluru, each pitstop scheduled for 1 hr 15 min. Currently, some other SFO-BLR flights by Air India include a DEL Airport layover stretching 1 hour 35 minutes. But Bengaluru to San Francisco itineraries have some relief for Air India passengers. Some flights (AI 175) are nonstop while some (AI 2661|173) have one stop (Delhi).
Among Air India’s US to India flights, SFO to Mumbai itineraries do currently have one pitstop – Kolkata or New Delhi – increasing the total travel time to 20-22 hours, as seen on IndianEagle.com. On the other hand, flights from Mumbai to San Francisco are being rerouted via Bengaluru Airport or Delhi IGI Airport. Some SFO to Delhi flights operated by Air India are two-stop itineraries with Kolkata and Bengaluru as domestic pitstops in India.
Air India’s Chicago to Delhi flights and JFK to Delhi flights are back to nonstop operations, as refueling stops have been removed from the itineraries scheduled in June and July 2025, according to IndianEagle.com, the most trusted travel-booking partner of Indians and Americans for over 15 years. But DEL to ORD itineraries (Air India 127) continue to have a refueling stop in Vienna for 1 hr 10 min, which makes the journey as long as 19 hours 45 minutes.
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I agreed
What about ORD to Hyderabad direct non-stop flights ? We are facing lot of inconvenience landing in Delhi and taking the domestic flight to Hyderabad.
Hi Margaret! Chicago to Hyderabad nonstop flight is a distant reality. By the way, what inconvenience you are facing at Delhi Airport? If you kindly share in brief..
What about jfk or ewr (new jersey) to atq (amritsar). There used to be Qatar flight from Jfk to doha to amritsar. Is this still available, it shows online but is it true and no extra stops for this?
Hi John! IndianEagle.com has Qatar Airways itineraries with one-stop flight from JFK to Amritsar via Doha.
One of the biggest inconveniences and the reason many people travelling to cities other than Delhi while coming from America is collecting check-in baggage and then checking them back in. This is a very time taking and frustrating process. Prior to covid, if I was travelling from Chicago to Hyd via Del, I would only collect my check-in luggage at Hyderabad I never had to collect it in Delhi and recheck it in and go through domestic security check process again.
If you were travelling with etihad or emirates the transit process is much simpler. I hope Indian authorities make this transit process simple so that I will actually look forward to using AI flight again in the future. For now I don’t want to deal with this BS unless i don’t have any other options.