While Air India's coming Mumbai to New York JFK route was announced a few weeks ago, it wasn't put on sale. It is now available for booking, marking the third time Air India has attempted the route since 2007. It is one of nine routes for Air India to the USA this winter, but Hyderabad-Chicago is no longer scheduled.
Mumbai-JFK: available for booking
Air India will begin Mumbai-JFK on February 14th, Valentine's Day, rather than the previously expected February 1st. The 1 daily flight will use more premium-heavy, 238-seat 777-200LRs rather than lower-premium, 342-seat 777-300ERs. The schedule is as follows, with all times local:
- Mumbai to JFK: AI119, 00:55-06:55 arrives the same day (16h 30m block time)
- JFK to Mumbai: AI116, 10:55-11:35+1 (14h 10m)
Air India is no stranger to the route. According to US Department of Transportation (DOT) data, it was served nonstop between August 2007-October 2010, then again from December 2018-March 2019. Delta also used to operate: November 2006-October 2008 (when Air India was present) and December 2019-March 2020.
The appeal of the market isn't hard to understand. Booking data shows that 147,000 roundtrip point-to-point passengers flew Mumbai-JFK in 2019. They paid an average of $540 each way (excluding taxes and any fuel surcharge). That fare was among the highest of all significant India-North America markets and 10% higher than Mumbai-Newark.
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Air India's USA winter routes
As of November 16th, Air India has 843 India-USA nonstop flights this winter, up by a fifth over the 693 it had in winter 2019. It is from its route network rising from five to nine, with all nine summarized below:
Air India's routes |
Flights |
Aircraft |
Comments |
Find flights |
---|---|---|---|---|
Delhi-San Francisco |
10 weekly |
777-200LR (some 777-300ER in Nov/Dec) |
||
Delhi-Chicago |
1 daily |
777-300ER |
Was to be 8 weekly but no more |
|
Delhi-JFK |
1 daily |
777-300ER |
||
Mumbai-JFK |
1 daily |
777-200LR |
Starts February 14th |
|
Bengaluru-San Francisco |
3 weekly |
777-200LR |
Starts December 2nd |
|
Delhi-Newark |
3 weekly |
777-300ER |
||
Delhi-Washington Dulles |
3 weekly |
787-8 |
||
Mumbai-Newark |
3 weekly |
777-300ER |
||
Mumbai-San Francisco |
3 weekly |
777-200LR |
Starts December 15th |
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No more Hyderabad-Chicago
Air India launched Hyderabad-Chicago, a long market of 8,263 miles (13,299km), in January 2021. It was attracted by 101,000 annual P2P passengers, which made O'Hare Hyderabad's second-largest US market after San Francisco. It ran 1 weekly using 777-200LRs. As recently as October, it was scheduled to operate this winter, but it no longer will.
According to the US DOT, Air India carried 7,424 roundtrip passengers between Hyderabad and Chicago in 2021. With 8,568 passengers, it had a seat load factor of 87%, the highest of all its India-US flights that year and well above the 74% average. Of course, SLF is just one performance element, it had few seats to sell, and it was a time of the air travel bubble.
Will you be flying between India and the US this year? If so, with which airline? Let us know in the comments.