Summary
- With 209,000 passengers, Delhi-JFK was the carrier's busiest route in the 12 months to October 2023.
- A third of its US airport pairs started or returned in 2022/2023.
- Despite Bengaluru-San Francisco resuming in December 2022, 93% of seats were filled.
Air India carried 1.11 passengers to/from the US in the 12 months to October 2023, the most recent month available to me. This is based on examining US Department of Transportation T-100 data. About 3,000 people flew daily. With 1.29 million seats for sale, it filled an average of 86 out of 100 seats.
Coming Soon? Air India Adds 3 US Destinations To Its Route Map
Dallas, Los Angeles, and Seattle are now listed.Nine non-stop routes
The following figure shows the number of passengers, seats for sale, and seat load factor (SLF) for each of the nine routes. As ever, SLF is just one performance element and should not be considered in isolation of yields and traffic.
Note that passenger volume includes all those onboard regardless of whether they were point-to-point (only flew between the two airports) or connected to/from flights elsewhere.
Context is needed. Air India commenced Bengaluru-San Francisco in the pandemic-hit January 2021 on an obviously low-frequency basis, and it ran until March 2022. It returned on a three-weekly basis in December 2022. Between then and October 2023, so not an entire year, Air India carried 66,000 passengers on its non-stop flights.
Air India filled a considerable 93% of seats – well above its US average of 86%. I have not looked at fares and yields, but hopefully, given the nature of demand, they were sufficiently strong. Given the enormous length of haul (8,701 miles, 14,003 km), they certainly needed to be.
Air India commenced San Francisco to Mumbai – its second-longest non-stop route network-wide – in December 2022. It had three weekly flights, which later rose to four.
The Star Alliance member started Mumbai-JFK in December 2018 and operated until March 2020. It returned in February 2023, so the figures in the graph are only for three quarters of a year. Despite this, the daily 777-200LR service meant it was the fourth-largest route by passengers.
Where Air India Is Flying Its Boeing 777-300ERs This Winter
The ex-Etihad and the company-owned aircraft differ in where they fly.A look at Delhi-JFK
US DOT figures show that Air India carried 209,000 passengers on its daily non-stop 777-300ER-operated Delhi-JFK service. It typically filled 286 seats of the 342 available, providing a non-seasonalized average SLF of about 84%.
Across all airlines, Air India carried more Delhi-JFK passengers than any other carrier. It had about a 37% market share. As shown below, where passengers went can be segmented as follows:
- 48% of Air India's passengers flew Delhi-JFK-Delhi
- 37% started/ended at JFK and transited in Delhi (JFK-Delhi-Hyderabad was first)
- 10% transited to other flights in JFK and Delhi (Detroit-JFK-Delhi-Hyderabad was first)
- 5% started/ended in Delhi and connected to other flights in JFK (Detroit-Delhi was top)
Hopefully, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Seattle will be announced soon. Aside from these cities, where else would you like Air India to fly? Let us know in the comments section.