Delta JFK Mumbai service (consolidated thread)
 

From the Delta news hub:

Delta Air Lines will begin nonstop flights between the United States and Mumbai, India, next year, linking the U.S. with one of its strongest trading partners.

The announcement follows agreements between the U.S. and the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to address the issue of government subsidies provided to state-owned carriers in those nations. The framework created by the agreement allows Delta to move forward with service to India, a market long impacted by government-subsidized Middle Eastern airlines.

This move will mark a return to India for Delta, which was forced to exit the market after subsidized state-owned airlines made service economically unviable.

"It is exciting to be able to announce Delta's return to India from the U.S. as part of our vision to expand Delta's reach internationally," said Delta CEO Ed Bastian. "We are thankful to the president for taking real action to enforce our Open Skies trade deals, which made this new service possible. We are looking forward to providing customers in the U.S. and India with Delta's famously reliable, customer-focused service operated by the best employees in the industry."

The service is subject to government approval; full schedule details will be announced later this year.

Delta also intends to expand its existing codeshare relationship with partner Jet Airways to provide seamless connections to other destinations within India, subject to government approvals.

I'd assume JFK on A350. Could be ATL on 777LR

Quite odd that it doesn't even specify the U.S. origin. 'In 2019' has that Southwest to Hawaii kind of vagueness to it. Shameful.

You have a very high bar for shameful behavior then.

I disagree. They wanted to get the word out as soon as possible that it was coming, but probably don't have all the details finalized yet. They could have several options currently in planning, but which route (or routes) make the final cut through the approval process is still an unknown. Better to let people know in general that service is coming rather than specify a routing that may not come to light.

Sure wish they would restart DXB

What was preventing them from flying to Mumbai previously? Not up to speed on the reason.

At least partly because they had no reliable feed on the other end. That's different now with Jet Airways and their Mumbai hub

What a load of BS from government-subsidized DL's pathetic whiner in chief.
The US3 got absolutely nothing out of the supposed settlement and continue to propagate lies.
I for one will never fly DL internationally and reward DL for its disingenuous hypocrisy.

Just saw this on Twitter moments ago and may take advantage of this once we know the dates and USA departure city.

The sugar coating continues. DL, UA and AA got very little out of the whole huff and puff over the ME3 so this had to already have been in the works. And if it were that bad, why has UA been able to keep their EWR-India service going all these years?

Wow, could they spin this piece any harder? There were more not-so-subtle references to the ME3 than there were references to India.

It will happen. Last time, both JFK & ATL-BOM who tried it before and it didn't workout so well. Due to low demands.

Doubt it. It will happen. If they restart nonstop ATL-DXB. It's up to Delta.

Please! No more talking about ME3. They had enough already. Just forget about that.

Tell that to Bastien.
As long as he keeps lying about the ME3 and perpetuates his stupid woe is us US3 BS. I'll keep posting about it.
Yo Ed, here's an idea... try competing on service @:-)

I wish! Delta won't stop complaining.