Aviation News

Air India has confirmed plans to fly direct to Australia. The national carrier will launch daily flights from New Delhi to both Sydney and Melbourne later this year, using its 256-seat, two-class Boeing 787 Dreamliner. News of the new service was welcomed by Australian authorities.

“Since 2008, visitor numbers from India to NSW have increased by over a third – with holidaymakers, international students and those visiting friends and families making Sydney and NSW their destination,” said NSW’s minister for tourism & major events, George Souris. “This new service to Sydney will provide a new way for visitors to plan and book their next visit to Sydney.”

Sydney Airport’s CEO Kerrie Mather added; “This is a great result for NSW and a great result for tourism. With more than 217,000 people of Indian decent living in Sydney alone, India is one of our largest unserved markets.”

The new route will see Air India fly a daily triangulated service from Delhi to Australia, operating to Melbourne via Sydney four days a week and to Sydney via Melbourne on the other three days. Services are expected to commence on 29 August.

Also, Air India will be launching Amritsar-Delhi-Birmingham flight from August 1, and restart daily Australia operations from August 29

The new flight will operate on the Amritsar-Delhi-Birmingham-Delhi-Amritsar route with Dreamliner aircraft on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The flight from Amritsar will leave at 1030 hrs, reach Delhi at 1150 hrs. AI-113 will depart from Delhi at 1330 hrs and reach Birmingham at 1800 hrs. The return flight AI-114 will take off from Birmingham at 2130 hrs and reach Delhi the next day at 1005 hrs. The flight for Amritsar will leave Delhi at 1205 hrs and arrive in Amritsar at 1305 hrs. The airline has recently announced August 29, 2013 as the re-launch date of Australia operations. After 16 years of service suspension, Air India is reintroducing its services to Australia with four times a week service on New Delhi – Sydney – Melbourne – New Delhi from August 29 and thrice a week service in opposite direction (New Delhi – Melbourne – Sydney – New Delhi) from August 30, 2013.