Flight cancellations, delays plague AI’s Bengaluru-San Francisco operations

Air India's non-stop flight between Bengaluru to San Francisco has been delayed 10 times and cancelled thrice ever since the airline relaunched direct flights on the route on December 2, multiple officials have told Moneycontrol.

The airline had launched direct flights between the cities on January 9, 2021, which it discontinued in March 2022, before resuming operations on December 2.

As part of its plans to operate the flight thrice a week on Fridays, Sundays, and Wednesdays with its Boeing 777-200LR aircraft, Air India was scheduled to operate 26 flights between Bengaluru and San Francisco from December 2 till date.

However, in that time, the flights were delayed by more than five hours 10 times and cancelled thrice, as the airline uses only one Boeing-777 (VT-AEG) aircraft, nicknamed Prabhat, to operate flights on the route, multiple officials said.

"Air India only uses one aircraft on its Bengaluru-San Francisco route. Since the plane was grounded in San Francisco on January 15 due to issues with its landing gear, there were a number of delays and cancellations," an industry insider said. He added that the aircraft returned to service and has come back to India on January 26.

Emails sent to Air India remained unanswered at the time of publishing.

An Air India official said that United Airlines, Air India's partner in the United States, did not have spare parts for the grounded plane. As the Bengaluru to San Francisco flights have a high passenger load factor, it was hard for the airline to find an alternative aircraft to operate on the route.

"Air India has five Boeing 777-200s which are capable of flying direct between Bengaluru and San Francisco carrying 300 passengers, but all these planes are currently being used to operate other flights between India and the US," the official said.

Another Air India official said that the airline informs its customers beforehand about any delays and cancellations. If a  flight is cancelled, the airline accommodates passengers on later flights, he added.

"We have received a great response to our Bengaluru-San Francisco flight. With our grounded plane back in action, the quality of our service on the route will only improve," the second official said.

The distance between the two cities is approximately 13,993 km and they are at opposite ends of the world, with a time difference of around 13.5 hours. The total flight time on this route is more than 17 hours, depending on wind speed.

Air India operates 37 non-stop flights a week between India and the United States. The airline also operates non-stop flights from Delhi to New York, Newark, Washington DC, San Francisco, and Chicago, and from Mumbai to Newark.

Passengers suffer  

Naturally, passengers bear the brunt of such delays and cancellations. On December 21, Air India’s direct flight AI 175 between Bengaluru and San Francisco was delayed by 13 hours. Snigdha Pathak, an IT engineer working in San Francisco, said that as a result she missed her connecting flight and was stuck in San Francisco till December 26, as other flights were stopped due to a storm warning.

"I was scheduled to fly to Dallas on December 23 but was stuck in the city for four days due to the delay, " Pathak said.

Around 312 flights were delayed and 122 cancelled on December 23 at San Francisco International Airport due to snowstorms and freezing temperatures across the US.

Several passengers have taken to Twitter in the past couple of  months to point out the delays in Air India’s Bengaluru-San Francisco operations, adding that elderly passengers and those with small children were especially impacted.

“Was supposed to fly from Bangalore to SFO today at 2:20PM! But the flight is just constantly getting delayed by 2 hours and now stands at a 10h delay! @airindiain hasn’t communicated clearly to its passengers,” Aishwarya Rao tweeted on December 21.

Similarly, Ganesh K. Ramamoorthy took to Twitter on December 21 to say that elderly passengers and those kids were struggling at Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru.

On January 17, Sandokana tweeted that the status of Air India's flight from San Francisco to Bengaluru was unclear, and that the airline's customer support was clueless.