Air India resumes its non-stop flight services between Mumbai and New York

Air India

Tata group-owned Air India on February 13 announced that it has resumed non-stop flights between Mumbai and New York. The resumption of flights on the BOM-JFK route will start from tomorrow, February 14.

The flight will operate daily with the newly inducted Boeing 777-200LR aircraft, taking the India-US frequency 47 non-stop flights per week, Air India said.

"The resumption is in line with the airline’s concerted endeavour to develop Mumbai as a significant hub, second only to Delhi, providing maximum international connectivity between India and the rest of the world," the airline said in a statement.

Air India has launched flights on this route twice since 2007 but has failed to keep them operational due to low passenger load factor. According to US Department of Transportation data, Air India served nonstop between on this route between August 2007-October 2010, then again from December 2018-March 2019.

The 1 daily flight will use more premium-heavy, 238-seat 777-200LRs rather than lower-premium, 342-seat 777-300ERs.

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.

The new flights are part of Air India's comprehension transformation plan Vihaan.AI to establish itself, once again, as a world-class global airline with an Indian heart.

Over the next 5 years, Air India aims to strive to increase its market share to at least 30 percent in the domestic market while significantly growing the international routes from the present market share.