AI offers ticket to London for Rs 6.9K, NY for Rs 22K

National carrier Air India is looking to start a non-stop service between New Delhi and San Francisco this winter.

Since it withdrew the New Delhi-Los Angeles flight some months back, the airline offers no connectivity to the US west coast. This proposed flight to San Francisco could therefore, become an important revenue generator.

Meanwhile, the airline on Friday announced flights to additional destinations in Europe and the US using Frankfurt as hub.

The move will allow passengers to fly from either Delhi or Mumbai to Chicago, via Frankfurt. The Chicago flight would offer a further connection to New Jersey. These new flights would use new the 777-300ER aircraft with a configuration of 4 first class seats, 35 business class seats and 303 economy class seats.

The new routes come close on the heels of Air India announcing a cut in fuel surcharge on a host of domestic routes for a limited period during the summer schedule.

Air India has over 150 aircraft at present, including 45 inducted in the past 18 months. After the induction of 30 new aircraft between now and March 2010, a total of 75 of the 111 aircraft ordered from Boeing and Airbus in 2005 would have joined the fleet, drastically bringing down the average age of the fleet to about 18 months.