A premium only for a select few travellers. Apparently not enough of them.

My experience with many passengers to India is that they will happily accept a one-stop or fly the 'long way round' to shave a hundred bucks off the cost of the airfare. Also, I suspect that culturally, AC may lack the cachet of alternative airline options via Asia or even Europe.

Undermining my own theories is the fact that AC recently announced an increase in the nonstop YVR-DEL to daily year-round service; perhaps that's the 'positive spin' to which I referred above.