Travellers brace yourself, as the national carrier Air India has decided to discontinue direct services from Mumbai to New York’s John F Kennedy airport. Air India has said that they are discontinuing the services owing to poor demand.
According to the Hindustan Times, however, the airline will continue to operate direct flights from Mumbai to Newark. The airline has said that the Mumbai-New York flight operation was causing losses to the airline. An AI spokesperson told the leading daily that, the Mumbai-New York flight, operated thrice a week, was temporarily suspended in February owing to the Pakistan airspace closure and was expected to resume in June. “However, we won’t be resuming the services. The flight has been discontinued owing to poor load factor or low seat occupancy,” the spokesperson added.
Air India operates Boeing B777-ER aircraft to operate flights to Newark, Washington, Chicago (from Hyderabad via Delhi), San Francisco and New York from Delhi. The Air India had commenced the direct flight from Mumbai to New York, thrice a week, from October 2018. The national carrier has 16 Boeing B777-ER planes, of which four were grounded because of unavailability of spare parts in October.
