India’s national carrier Air India will start operating nonstop flights between Bengaluru and San Francisco; Hyderabad and Chicago as early as January 2021. These nonstop international flights between the US and India will be scheduled twice a week from January through March. At present, Air India operates nonstop flights between the US and Delhi, Mumbai.
Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL), in a press release, stated that Air India would operate a 238-seater Boeing 777-200LR aircraft from Jan 9, 2021, to connect the original Silicon Valley and the Silicon Valley of India.
This first non-stop flight between Bengaluru and the United States, which traverses more than 14,000 km in about 16 hours, will be Air India’s longest route as well as the longest flight from/to India.
SFO-BLR nonstop service would further facilitate business travel between the two major IT hubs of the respective countries, taking into account that United Airlines’ daily nonstop flights on the same route would commence from May 6, 2021.
Air India has also announced Hyderabad-Chicago nonstop flights from 13th January 2021. Bookings on these new routes under Air India’s US-India bubble flights are already open!
More direct routes would be added to the US-India air connectivity with the availability of United Airlines’ Chicago-Delhi flights this December and American Airlines’ Bengaluru-Seattle flights from winter 2021. Tapping into these rather unserved routes is also considered lucrative for the airlines.
Meanwhile, India has extended the suspension of scheduled international commercial passenger flights from/to the country till December 31, 2020. However, the restrictions will not apply to international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by the DGCA, as per the official circular.
