SeeBuyFly

So the longhaul leases are 777-200, there are five instead of six, and will start Dec-Mar rather than October (and maybe not even then).

Oh well, I was hoping for better luck on our holiday trip, guess we'll be on their decrepit existing aircraft.
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SeeBuyFly

Press release says "Mumbai will see the addition of flights to San Francisco as well as to both of the New York area’s international airports, Newark Liberty and John F Kennedy, while Bangalore will receive a 3x weekly service to San Francisco."

Quite a lot of expansion with five leased aircraft.

GMOChicken

If it's confirmed that the 777-200LR's are ex-Delta, these planes were being used by Delta on the JFK-BOM route (RIP). They were pretty recently refurbished pre-pandemic and have Delta One suites and the new Delta Premium Select premium economy product. IMO the hard product is a pretty big step up for Air India.

hyho61

I dont see the logic in adding BOM-SFO when they cannot even fly BOM-EWR daily, which is a long term profitable route. Also they need to add more flights on DEL-SFO and fly more than daily on BOM-EWR route, they have no non-stop competition now and could be like that for years. BLR-SFO should be started as soon as possible as they are missing valuable revenue on that sector now and perhaps try HYD-SFO too (or HYD-ORD).

PiperAtGatesofDawn

They probably can't fly BOM EWR daily because of a lack of planes. They used to fly daily before. The 5 additional planes will help them substantially. Of course now they have to get a PE service and make sure that the planes are consistently flying a set route. Having 2 aircraft types flying as AI 191/192 will only make passengers confused and angry.

SeeBuyFly

These new ULH route announcements are aspirational. No start date is given. They are implying that 5 new planes will let then start all these routes, but I think that is just PR.

If they push out their grounded 777s in a bit to expand routes, this will backfire. Using the nice DL planes on certain routes is in any case going to cause jealousy and confusion. They should improve their existing product in some consistent manner first, rather than just throwing everything at the wall. My guess is that they understand this, but I could be wrong.

PiperAtGatesofDawn

Why should it cause jealousy and confusion if it is used on a dedicated route and doesn't have frequent plane swaps - I can imagine how peeved J & PE pax would be if that happened and they had to go from their 77Ls to AI older 77Ws...

Airlines upgrade their fleet all the time and that fleet upgrade takes places in a phased manner. BOM - EWR pax should not be jealous and confused if for example - DEL - EWR pax get the newer planes.

I do agree this is more PR/marketing gone crazy. Announcing 5 ULH routes with 5 new planes!

SeeBuyFly

I'd be jealous. The difference between AI 777s and DL 777s is vast, it isn't even close to the same product. How can both be AI-branded flights?

Of course random swaps are even worse.

PiperAtGatesofDawn

You could be jealous of a relatively new BOM-DEL A321-neo that flies 1 hour after your 20 year old A319 flies that same route. But that's not what I was saying at all. As long as "what to expect" is clearly articulated by AI and is consistently followed - at least I wouldn't care what people on DEL-EWR are flying even if it is with the same airline brand. As a kind of (sort of) reasonable person I understand that the DL One suites is a temporary thing for some planes with AI. Would I have like to fly DL One suites - of course. Would I care that my route doesn't have it and others do - not really.

What would get me cheesed off would be being promised a nice new 77L and being given a old broken down 77W seat in J.

Also I wouldn't be surprised if the 77L has a price premium. It should.

malgudi

https://www.routesonline.com/news/29...-fleet-revamp/

​​​​​​Is this really happening?

oliver2002

They still have the 3 B77L in the fleet, even though they are looking for buyers.

TravellingMan

They need to first fix the immigration queue in DEL/BOM during their peak departure times. It is like playing a roulette if you will make your flight or not as immigration and security checks are typically backed up. You can hear the calls as they track the last set of passengers through this process every night.

I

PiperAtGatesofDawn

How would AI fix that? That's the airport authorities job... Also that has nothing to do with this thread - which is discussing AI's fleet and fleet expansion.

superboi

Perhaps they could run them as UK branded flights

TravellingMan

With all the discussions about new routes and aircraft, I wanted to bring attention to the fact that if you do not make the flight none of this matters. Whether it is in AI's control or airport authorities, ultimately it is the passenger who suffers. I have been through this in Delhi and it sucks!