- By Nidhi Giri
- Sun, 20 Oct 2024 04:46 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Air India will begin daily, non-stop flights between Bengaluru and London Heathrow from October 27, the airline announced on Saturday. The new service will connect London Heathrow to all three of Air India’s hubs in India. The flights will replace the current Bengaluru-London Gatwick route and increase the frequency from five times a week to seven times a week. Bookings are now open for the new flights.
According to an Air India statement, the non-stop service, to be operated using a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft with 18 flat beds in Business class and 238 spacious seats in Economy, will add capacity to London Heathrow by 3,584 seats a week, inbound and outbound.
Air India currently operates 31 times weekly to London Heathrow from Delhi and Mumbai. Air India said it will continue to operate 12 times weekly flights to London Gatwick from four cities -- Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Goa and Kochi.
Earlier this month, Air India said that flights operated by Vistara will start using the flight code 'AI2' after the merger of the two airlines next month. Despite the integration on November 12, the Vistara experience will "remain the same", said the Tata Group-owned airline. The merger involves Vistara, a joint venture between Tata Group and Singapore Airlines, and Air India.
Meanwhile, in the nine-month period this year (January-September), Tata Group-run Air India flew over 1.64 crore passengers with 13.9 per cent share, and Vistara registered a market share of 9.8 per cent with 1.15 crore air passengers.
AIX Connect (erstwhile AirAsia India), which is also a part of the Tata Group, ferried 61.02 lakh passengers in the nine months this year, clocking a market share of 5.1 per cent, as per the DGCA data.
(With Agency Inputs)