Air India today has an extensive North America network operating nonstop at least 1x daily to over 7 stations from Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. In this post, I will attempt to cover the history of Air India's North America operations and the changes over the years.
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| 707-337B VT-DSI "Lhotse" |
Air India had been operating the London LHR route since 1948, first with 40 seat Lockheed L-749s Constellations and later with 56 seat L1049 Super Constellations before moving to 164 seat Boeing 707 in February 1960. This was early days in Aviation when multi-stop rather than non-stop flights were the norm. The exact routing varied depending on day of week and Air India had full 5th freedom rights on these enroute stops which means they could carry local traffic from and between each of these stops.
On 14th May 1960, Air India quietly extended one of its existing LHR flights to operate onwards to JFK (then known as Idlewild-IDL). The 707s to New York JFK operated on the following schedule.
AI109 (Friday) - Mumbai-Cairo-Rome-Paris-London-New York
AI111 (Sat) - Mumbai-Beirut-Geneva-Paris-London-New York
AI115 (Sun) - Mumbai-Cairo-Geneva-Paris-London-New York
Must have been quite the trip for a New York bound immigrant in 1964 with over 4/5 stops enroute and total flight time exceeding 42 hours! The Competition was hardly any better as British Airways (then known as BOAC) operated a schedule like Mumbai-Dhahran/Bahrain-London on a VC10 with a change of plane and then onwards to JFK on a 707. Depending on day of week, the BOAC flight also had additional stops in Karachi and Kuwait! Crazy times!
Air India began quickly replacing its L1049 Constellations with 707's - a mix of RR powered -400s and -300/-300C with PW engines. By 1964, Air India had replaced the last of its Connies to become the worlds first all-jet airline. The 707 fleet had by now grown to 11 strong and JFK flight was daily. The exact route varied by Day of Week with Delhi getting a stopover on 2 days and Kolkata getting a extension on 2 days (later 4). Chennai bound passengers could connect to AI109/111/115 on AI's existing daily BOM-MAA flight which continued on to SIN(3x)/KUL(3x)/JKT(1x) depending on day of week.
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| 747-237B "Emperor Rajendra Chola" at JFK New York |
The 70s saw the induction of the 747-200 "Jumbo Jet" and along with these came the iconic "Palace in the Sky" livery with interiors to match! Complying with the Royalty and Palace theme, every 747-200 was named after a King/Emperor from Indian History. The upper deck of the -200s in Air India fleet initially had an exclusive lounge for the 20 First Class passengers. This Upper Deck lounge was later replaced with a Business class section when it was introduced in the late 80s. This initially had 26 recliner type seats which were later upgraded to 18 angle-flat seats similar to those on the newer 747-400s. The larger upper deck on the 747-400 had 26 angle-flat seats which was the norm for the era.
Even Economy Class section had beautiful and unique interior panels painted with frescoes from Ajanta/Ellora. Some photos from the interiors of the 747-200 fleet.
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| First class lounge on Air India 747-200 Upper Deck |
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| First class lounge on Air India 747-200 Upper Deck |
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| Intricately carved interior wall Panels on Air India 747-200 |
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| 16 (later 12) seat First class section the nose of the Air India 747-200 |
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| Intricately painted Wall pannels on Air India 747-200 |
With 385 seats in total, it was a significant bump in capacity from the 164 seat 707s. The 11 incoming 747s replaced the 707s almost on a one to one basis. London and New York moved to 747 completely. This was the time many of the enroute stops were quietly dropped or moved around. This was also the first time that BOM and DEL got atleast one non-stop flight /week to LHR - a significant gain for the passenger.
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| 747-237B "Emperor Rajendra Chola" at JFK New York |
The 747-200s in turn made way for 747-400s beginning 1991 and the 747-400 in turn made way for the 777 beginning 2003. The flashy "Palace" interiors with painted walls went away with the -200s - even the A310-300s that entered the fleet in 1986 did not have them! Too expensive to maintain and the wall panels got dirty very soon courtesy all the oily, greasy hair! Third world problems!
From 1972 onwards, Air India's North America flights settled into the pattern we were familiar with growing up- A101 2x/3x week BOM-LHR-JFK and AI111 BOM-DEL-LHR-JFK 4x/5x a week. The LHR-JFK portion was single daily flight with either 101 or 115 terminating at LHR on certain days of the week. This pattern would continue for over 36 years till the last AI112 JFK-LHR-DEL-BOM flight in 2008.
India and Canada signed their first bilateral air-service agreement in 1982 following which Air India began services to Montreal (YMX). Canadian flights began on October 2, 1982 with the routing BOM-DEL-FRA-LHR-YMX-LHR-DEL-BOM operated incidentally by VT-EFO "Emperor Kanishka". YYZ was later added and FRA stop eliminated and final AI 181/182 routing was BOM-DEL-LHR-YUL-YYZ-LHR-DEL-BOM. One of these flights was targeted by Sikh dissident groups in 1985 in response to Operation Bluestar. Vancouver was served with a sort of codeshare arrangement with Canadian Pacific where passengers could fly CP to Tokyo\connecting to Air India AI307/309 to DEL.
Despite the large population of 2nd and 3rd gen NRIs in Canada, Air India had mixed results with Canada flights. Full flights but low, low yields which meant that unlike JFK, Canadian stations kept going offline and online between 1982 and 2006. Most Canadian-Desis preferred to fly British Airways or later Virgin Atlantic.
Service to Canada stopped immediately after the "Kanishka" bombing in 1985 and was only reinstated in 1989 with a twice weekly flight via LHR only to be dropped within the year. Service was briefly resumed in 1992 Summer Season by extending one of the JFK flights to YYZ 5 days a week and remaining 2 days India-LHR-YYZ (AI-121) but dropped in Winter 92 schedule only to be reinstated in 93 Summer. Service to YYZ thus remained sketchy throughout the 90s with an on again, off again pattern. YYZ flights were finally dropped in 1997 when Air India decided the LHR slots were better used launching ORD.
At one time in the 90s, Air India even considered extending their A310 flights to MAN/BHX onwards to YYZ. Incidentally Pakistani Airline PIA also did exactly the same! This would possibly be the farthest AI A310's ever operated from India. The DEL-ATQ-FCO-MAN/BHX-YYZ flights idea never really took off and got unfortunate nicknames like "Punjab Mail" - the other nicknames being simply unprintable! But if this had happened, then for the first time, Indian/Pakistani expats in UK and Canada could have travelled between UK/Canada on Desi carriers - however briefly. PIA (aka Please Inform Allah) had better biryani but AI (Already Informed) had free and unlimited daaru (alcohol)! In 2001, Air India tried to reenter YYZ for the umpteenth time with the ill-considered move to extend one of their LHR flights to YYZ. AI121 operated YYZ-LHR-DEL 3x /week for one season during which it flew mostly empty. Very popular for non-revenue travellers as seats were always wide open!
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| 747-437B at EWR |
Till 1997, JFK was Air India's only North American destination for almost 40 years. However a new bilateral signed that year allowed Air India access to 5 stations - JFK, EWR, ORD, LAX and IAD. ORD became the second US destination in 1997 with LHR slots from Toronto service being repurposed to launch a 3x weekly BOM-LHR-ORD service.
Air India then launched flights to EWR in 2001. With LHR slots becoming too expensive, Air India chose for the first time to route these new flights via other European Destinations.
Chicago ORD was served initially 6 times a week from 2000 - 3x via LHR and 3x via FRA. But after Air India's mysterious 2001 pullout of FRA, ORD was served 3x via LHR and 3x via CDG.
EWR service was launched on Dec 6, 2002 with AI145 operating 3 days/week on the following schedule via Paris CDG:
BOM dep 0400
DEL arr 0550 dep 0705
CDG arr 1300 dep 1415
EWR arr 1615
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| 747-437B at LAX |
Along with the EWR flight came a new connection opportunity for Keralites as Air India launched a COK-DEL flight with A310-300 to connect to the EWR service. In addition domestic carrier Indian Airlines (IC) also launched midnight "connector flights" with AI flight numbers from BLR, HYD and AMD to BOM to connect to North American flights ex-BOM. Passengers could complete immigration and customs formalities at their *home airports* with these connector flights which operated to/from the international terminals.
At this time, plans were also made to serve LAX and SFO flying east. DEL-NRT-SFO and DEL-SEL-LAX were both announced. However the East Asian financial crisis and failure to negotiate 5th freedoms put an end to this attempt.
This was the time Air India was heavily into playing the *codeshares* game - the defeatist *Michael Mascarenhas* effect - though many AI insiders say "Practical"! Instead of operating flights on its own metal, Air India began allowing foreign carriers to operate additional flights on its Bilaterals in return for codesharing rights on these flights. One of the many many AI codeshare flights (with 4 digit flight numbers) was SIN-LAX with SQ. So the first flight with Air India flight number to LAX was actually operated by Singapore Airlines aircraft! :)
Air India's 40+ year old ambition of flying to the West Coast on its own metal finally came true in 2004 when they began flying BOM-FRA-LAX using 2 747-400s leased from Korean Air.
AI 137/136 (Wed/Fri/Sun)
BOM d 0710
FRA a 1225 d 1400
LAX a 1635 d 1910
FRA a 1450+1 d 1615+1
BOM a 0345+2
The LAX service did not last long however and was gone by the next flying season! North America flying then stabilised at 23 flights/week all with 747-400 aircraft.
7x BOM-DEL-LHR-JFK
3x BOM-LHR-JFK
7x BOM-FRA-EWR
3x BOM-FRA-ORD
3x BOM-LHR-ORD
The Non-Stop era. 2007-date
For the first time AI's North America operations began to get real muscle. Daily midnight departures ex-DEL to JFK, ORD, EWR and YYZ operated with 353 seat 77Ws. International connectors to DEL using A32x aircraft offering convenient connections to these flights from Ahmedabad, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar and 30 other domestic stations! In addition, 77W aircraft operated some of these domestic extensions allowing *same-plane service* for the first time. For eg AI125 to ORD operated HYD-DEL-ORD & vv. AI111 operated BOM-DEL-JFK & vv and AI173 operated BLR-DEL-EWR & vv. The domestic connectors typically left between 8-9pm arriving in DEL at 1030pm allowing enough time to catch the North American departure bank between 0030-0200 hours. In the return direction, North America flights arrived in DEL late afternoon with direct connections to IC's old evening departure bank to over 30 domestic stations. It worked amazingly well! Flights to YYZ(2011) and YVR(2019) were finally launched and did amazingly well because of domestic connection opportunities.
For eg, IC had 7 daily A320 departures each way on BOM-MAA which shrunk to 4 daily departures. 7x daily departures on HYD-BOM and HYD-MAA which came down to 3/4. Some routes like MAA-BLR-PNQ which had operated since the 60s on Dakotas/HS748s/737s and A320s vanished. The only routes where Air India maintained their brute force presence were BOM-DEL, CCU-DEL, BLR-DEL - again all radiating to DEL. So overall the DEL hub has been a mixed bag. It allowed Air India to build up their North American operations but at the cost of loosing out in Domestic competitiveness allowing Indigo to come in and grab the domestic pie. Hopefully this will change now as Air India has ordered 140 A321Neo and 70 A320neos. This combined with Air India Express order for 190 737MAXs could allow Air India to regain that lost competetive edge by bringing back the *same day return* flights between 40 stations in India.
The Present.
The 77x Fleet on date is as follows:
The future
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