Air India to deploy Boeing 777 aircraft on long routes

To provide comfort and luxury to passengers in its long-haul flights, Air India has decided to deploy newly-acquired B777 aircraft on these sectors from the winter schedule starting October 25. The national carrier has also decided to introduce daily flights from Washington to Kolkata from December 1. "Air India will deploy the B777s to all its seven West-bound destinations in Europe, the US and Canada, and one to Tokyo. The airline will begin its services to Newark, Paris, Toronto and Tokyo using the B777 from October 25, beginning of the winter schedule," an Air India spokesperson said.

At present, the comfort and luxury of state of the art B777 aircraft are available on Air India flights to Chicago, New York, Frankfurt and London. Air India, which is in the red, has ordered the acquisition of 111 new aircraft, of which it has received and inducted 64 so far. These includes nine B777-300ER, eight B777-200LR, 15 each of A321 and A319 aircraft, besides 17 B737-800 aircraft for Air India Express. "The airline has reworked its winter schedule in such a manner so as to provide the passengers with a product that matches the best in the industry, both on international and domestic sectors," the spokesperson said. In the winter schedule, the airline will operate its Amritsar-London-Toronto flights with B777-300ER from Amritsar four days a week, while on the remaining three days the flight would operate from Delhi.

Oman Air seeks to expand Indian routes

Oman Air will not lease aircraft after November 22, when the last Airbus A330 leased from Jet Airways is returned. The airline took delivery of its third A330 this week and will add four more to its fleet by March 2011 thereby removing the need for leasing, CEO Peter Hill said. Having reached capacity on all its Indian routes, Oman Air will enter talks with the Indian Government to grow its network in its strongest market, he said. The airline expects available seat kilometres in 2009 to grow by 27 per cent on last year and will launch flights to Tanzania and Kenya. However, the airline’s next major announcement will come at Dubai Air Show, which starts on November 15.