http://www.businesstoday.in/sectors/avi ... 37572.html

The above article talks about AI's global expansion plans to SFO, MAD, SYD, MEL, IAD, CPH/ARN. The article also talks about possible services to Nairobi and Tehran and also increase in flights to SIN and BKK. Looks like AI is upping its ante on the global level. Even though the service levels are poor and overall perception of the airline is very low but things definitely look on the upswing now. With IAD launch and SFO increment, AI will have quite an impressive footprint in NA
What do you all think about AI's expansion plans.

Also with such an extensive european network consisting of LHR, CDG, FRA, VIE, MXP, FCO, CPH/ARN why doesnt it time its SYD/MEL/SIN flights to connect to the above both ways.

Looking at the traffic, IAD, followed by Nairobi and Teheran appear to be the best bets. Not sure about MAD, where the traffic growing but may not be sufficient enough to sustain flights 3 to 4 times a week.

I wouldn't take AI on a dare. My friend was supposed to take BA ORD-LHR & got put on AI instead. Ended up in a seat near the galley. She said it took all her muster not to throw up.

ricport wrote:

I wouldn't take AI on a dare. My friend was supposed to take BA ORD-LHR & got put on AI instead. Ended up in a seat near the galley. She said it took all her muster not to throw up.

Sure, AI isn't what it was many, many (did I say many?) years ago, but that last comment has "racist" written all over it.

Great news! Air India is better than you think. I would rather fly them instead of one of the bigger European and American Carriers.

ricport wrote:

I wouldn't take AI on a dare. My friend was supposed to take BA ORD-LHR & got put on AI instead. Ended up in a seat near the galley. She said it took all her muster not to throw up.

ORD to LHR?

indcwby wrote:

ricport wrote:

I wouldn't take AI on a dare. My friend was supposed to take BA ORD-LHR & got put on AI instead. Ended up in a seat near the galley. She said it took all her muster not to throw up.

Sure, AI isn't what it was many, many (did I say many?) years ago, but that last comment has "racist" written all over it.

Nah.. Perhaps she drank a lot, what with Air India's generous policy with alcohol.. Or perhaps she overate... You never can tell...

TheHeathrowFlye wrote:

ricport wrote:

I wouldn't take AI on a dare. My friend was supposed to take BA ORD-LHR & got put on AI instead. Ended up in a seat near the galley. She said it took all her muster not to throw up.

ORD to LHR?

Time traveller or a long time ago

viewtopic.php?t=967091

Apparently there used to be ORD -> LHR -> DEL

the most logical i see here is IAD. big indian diaspora, alot of connections on both ends and alot of business and diplomatic ties.
unfortunately, i dont see NBO or ARN/CPH happaning.

Yes, AI flew ORD-LHR-DEL and ORD-FRA-BOM for a while before switching to nonstop ORD-DEL when they received the 77Ws in 2010

AI tried IAD to DEL via NYC before and failed miserably. I don't know how they would do if they did a non stop but competing with the ME3 and TK for Indian traffic will be rough!

FLY

SAS tried to make CPH-DEL work, but failed. Only a few years ago.. don't see what would make AI succeed unfortunately.

yashk wrote:

http://www.businesstoday.in/sectors/aviation/air-india-goes-full-throttle-on-foreign-operations/story/237572.html

The above article talks about AI's global expansion plans to SFO, MAD, SYD, MEL, IAD, CPH/ARN. The article also talks about possible services to Nairobi and Tehran and also increase in flights to SIN and BKK. Looks like AI is upping its ante on the global level. Even though the service levels are poor and overall perception of the airline is very low but things definitely look on the upswing now. With IAD launch and SFO increment, AI will have quite an impressive footprint in NA
What do you all think about AI's expansion plans.

Also with such an extensive european network consisting of LHR, CDG, FRA, VIE, MXP, FCO, CPH/ARN why doesnt it time its SYD/MEL/SIN flights to connect to the above both ways.

Would the Dallas/Fort Worth area be a candidate for future expansion by AI or would it be too tough a market to enter with the ME3 already in place?

Tehran may be served by AI Express and not mainline.

AI was a very good airlines many years ago, but with the consent muddling of the Indian Gov in the running of the company I doubt it will ever be a company people would feel happy investing in. I do wish them well.

IAD seems a logical next step in NA. One thing I do not understand is that why doesnt AI sell interline itineraries on its website. If one wants to fly to LAX, they cannot buy the DEL-SFO-LAX trip on AI's website. I know UA is not interested to code share with AI at this time but why doesnt AI sell interline tickets cause AI definitely has those agreements with all 3- UA, AA, and DL.

I always though that DAR will make more sense than NBO for the East Africa area, business and VFR is huge for Indian diaspora in Tanzania.

I don't really see MAD in the mix, but lately MAD is getting a lot of Asian carriers, however with the ME3 big presence in MAD it will difficult for AI to make it work, specially now that Star alliance has no big presence at MAD.

Air India is a real chaos but I think the Modi government could make something about it, they are changing many things and AI is a big burden for the country so it should be a very important issue to solve.

yashk wrote:

IAD seems a logical next step in NA. One thing I do not understand is that why doesnt AI sell interline itineraries on its website. If one wants to fly to LAX, they cannot buy the DEL-SFO-LAX trip on AI's website. I know UA is not interested to code share with AI at this time but why doesnt AI sell interline tickets cause AI definitely has those agreements with all 3- UA, AA, and DL.

So if one wanted to book lax-del on AI, wouldent they get UA to SFO and then AI to delhi? It seems that they are missing out on alot of connecting traffic if that is true?

I have already seen AI at SFO where their B777 departed in the early afternoon and at ORD where their B777 was departing in the mid evening, Matter of fact? I saw both in the same day. One while departing SFO and arriving at ORD..

yashk wrote:

IAD seems a logical next step in NA. One thing I do not understand is that why doesnt AI sell interline itineraries on its website. If one wants to fly to LAX, they cannot buy the DEL-SFO-LAX trip on AI's website. I know UA is not interested to code share with AI at this time but why doesnt AI sell interline tickets cause AI definitely has those agreements with all 3- UA, AA, and DL.

AI can sell these, and generally participating airlines give a discount for interline itineraries. But UA rarely gives a discount (not sure about AA or DL), so AI has to price the SFO-LAX at the prevailing price which makes the route not competitive, however I think AI should still give that option and let the customer decide.

From ORD and JFK, AI often issues tickets on AA and JetBlue and generally does not offer interline from EWR, UA appears to be difficult to work with.

yashk wrote:

IAD seems a logical next step in NA. One thing I do not understand is that why doesnt AI sell interline itineraries on its website. If one wants to fly to LAX, they cannot buy the DEL-SFO-LAX trip on AI's website. I know UA is not interested to code share with AI at this time but why doesnt AI sell interline tickets cause AI definitely has those agreements with all 3- UA, AA, and DL.

AI's PSS might not support the ability to even do interline. And even if they could, they won't sell it. Other carriers do the same thing. An airline like UA would never codeshare with AI if AI freely sold interline bookings.

AirPacific747 wrote:

SAS tried to make CPH-DEL work, but failed. Only a few years ago.. don't see what would make AI succeed unfortunately.

True but after that SK were resuming DEL again in 2008 however financial global crisis led them to drop the plan, even the schedule for the service was out as were press releases.

When SFO was initially announced as being under consideration, they also announced YYZ. Nothing has developed on the YYZ front, though AC is continually upping capacity to India from YYZ and soon YVR. I suppose given they are star partners that the carriers might have come to some accord.

If Air India doesn't focus into expanding West of India to Star Alliance hubs and/or adding routes with a very high India (DEL) O/D traffic, going against the ME3 it's going to be tough for them.

TheHeathrowFlye wrote:

Great news! Air India is better than you think. I would rather fly them instead of one of the bigger European and American Carriers.

True....most a.netters just blindly follow what a few dedicated AI bashers keep saying.....AI is often better than some of the US mainline carriers....the domestic AI services are way better than what you get on a domestic flight within NA.......yes, they are inconsistent and could deliver a bad experience to some on a given day......

I think most of us (the average non-professional aviation fan) would rely on observations, anecdotes, and instincts to guess at which of these destinations sound reasonable.

I'll take a contrarian approach and suggest that IAD is the most wobbly of these. Not because of traffic volume (though it is frankly nothing compared with NYC for example), but rather because it will be primarily catering to Indian government traffic travelling at heavy discounts--even in business class--over a very long distance. There is a good argument to be made that further strengthening of JFK, EWR, ORD, or SFO, all with heavier private business traffic, would work better.

Spain-India has actually grown quite a bit as more Indians are able to holiday abroad. It will probably surpass Russia-India, in terms of travel market size, if it hasn't already. The challenge here is that it's mostly tourist traffic over a pretty long distance. But AI seems to specialize in leisure traffic.

Scandinavia-India seems like a good fit for a SAS 321neoLR someday, from a business standpoint. The argument that it failed previously is a silly one. Circumstances change. One might guess that AI will cater more to tourists and students. Berlin might be interesting too--no Emirates!

If AI chooses Stockholm along with Madrid, the top ten European country markets from India will be covered by nonstops by some airline or another.

Tehran and Nairobi should be relatively easy. As mentioned, Dar-es-Salaam is worthwhile, as would be Lagos and Johannesburg. BOM-JNB is actually the largest India-Africa city pair, and nobody serves it.

Good to see MEL and SYD grow, some good connections out of both the NZ and Fiji, both with reasonable Indian diaspora. 5 weekly will help, and will further support the business market.

I wonder if they'll ever come back to YYZ.....

a big Indian community here

tscyyz wrote:

I wonder if they'll ever come back to YYZ.....

a big Indian community here

I think AI is reasonably happy with what AC is doing - and would probably prefer to stay that way.

tscyyz wrote:

I wonder if they'll ever come back to YYZ.....

a big Indian community here

I think it's slightlly behind in the queue. I'm not sure how much AC is a factor, as AC and AI would cater to somewhat different audiences.

BTW the size of a particular ethnic community isn't a great predictor of traffic volume. (And volume is of no use if fares are too low.) I'm sure you can find thousands upon thousands of Indian heritage people in the GTA that don't actually travel to India.

Do Indian-Fijians still have much of a connection with the sub-continent? Could be fertile ground in some form of codeshare agreement with Virgin-Australia (VA?) or FJ on flights between SYD/MEL-NAN.

Funny hearing people say it was once a decent airline: to my knowledge, it's always been fairly dire unless you were in Maharajah classes. The cabin crew looked down on the great unwashed in the largest cabin. Has this changed?

Extremely doubtful. These ethnic connections tend to dissipate over a generation or two, at least in terms of travel to the "home country". For example, South Africa has a fairly influential Indian-origin community, but the primary drivers of traffic between India and RSA are business and tourism.

indcwby wrote:

ricport wrote:

I wouldn't take AI on a dare. My friend was supposed to take BA ORD-LHR & got put on AI instead. Ended up in a seat near the galley. She said it took all her muster not to throw up.

Sure, AI isn't what it was many, many (did I say many?) years ago, but that last comment has "racist" written all over it.

Oh please! How exactly is that "racist?" Get a grip!