Forget about booking connecting flights while going to America. Changing flights for going from New Delhi to New York will now be a thing of the past. After tasting success for its Mumbai-New York non-stop flight, Air India has gone a step ahead. It launched a non-stop flight from New Delhi to New York, on 9th February 2008. With the launch of this flight, the flight time between New Delhi and New York will come down by at least three hours.
The first non-stop flight, AI-101, left Indira Gandhi International Airport (New Delhi) for John F Kennedy Airport (New York) on 9th February, at 12.30 am. The plane was a Boeing 777-200LR aircraft and is expected to land in New York at 5.45 am, local time, Friday. While coming back, the plane will leave John F Kennedy Airport at 4.00 pm, local time, and is expected to touch Indira Gandhi International Airport at 4.30 pm, Saturday.
As per Air India officials, the flight will take only 16 hours to reach New York. However, the travel time of the return flight will get increased by around 2 hours, taking it to 18 hours. With the launch of this flight, the non-stop service between India and JFK International Airport has gone to two in number. The first one was the New York to Mumbai non-stop service launched by Air India, on 1st August 2007. In that case also, Air India made use of a Boeing 777-200LR.
The Boeing plane has been equipped with the latest in-flight features, including on-demand audio and video entertainment in each and every seat. As per Air India officials, the national carrier will gradually increase the frequency of the New Delhi-New York flights up to 28 flights in a week. Apart from New York, Air India operates direct flights to a number of other American cities also, namely New Jersey, Chicago and Los Angeles.
