Air India to launch Australian services

[Jim Liu]

Originally Posted by lloyd fox

Oliver it has been delayed to whenever, because they cannot get approval .It isn't happening 1 November.

The Indian Govt will not permit the service as they believe it will not be profitable.

That is why i was glad to see a few in BNE the past few weeks.

DEL MEL, along with planned DEL SFO, is 99% dead.

[Will H]

From yesterday's Travel Today:

Air India has at last been granted permission to fly to Melbourne by the country’s civil aviation ministry, reports in India have claimed.

India Express.com quoted airline sources as saying the flights were “recently” approved.

But the delay has damaged its marketing strategy as flights will miss the peak winter season, the report said.

A meeting was taking place in Melbourne today with representatives from the airline.

Flights were originally slated for November 1 and then delayed until November 20, but no date has been confirmed.

http://www.travelweekly.com.au/getat...bb03f/pdf.aspx

NB The original article is here at Indian Express, not India Express: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/de...raffic/702480/

While the flights have now been approved, it sounds as though AI isn't confident of them as they will miss the Oz summer.

Interesting to note MEL is still on top of its game. AI looked at flying into SYD and BNE but MEL gave incentives and was cheaper to fly to.

[James M Smith]

They got a great new livery on some of them too!

Err, all the 773ERs have all been delivered in Air India's (now not so) new livery, which really does look great on both the 772LR and the 773ER.