Air India launches several new routes to Heathrow, Gatwick in UK - check details
1 min read . Updated: 12 Jan 2023, 02:50 PM IST
PremiumAir India has launched 12 weekly flights to London's Gatwick Airport and five additional services to Heathrow.
Air India on Thursday launched 17 new flights to the UK as it looks to expand its market share on international routes. This includes 12 weekly flights to London's Gatwick Airport and five additional services to Heathrow.
The carrier will now offer a thrice-a-week service from cities such as Amritsar, Ahmedabad, Goa, and Kochi to Gatwick - the only scheduled airline to offer direct services to UK's second largest airport.
With the latest additions, weekly frequencies between Delhi and Heathrow have increased from 14 to 17 times a week, while Mumbai rose from 12 to 14 flights a week.
Currently, Air India, Vistara, British Airways, and Virgin Atlantic are the only airlines operating services between the two countries. Prior to its downfall, Jet Airways had also run flights between India and the UK.
Air India presently runs flights from various Indian cities to London and Birmingham. While the company had launched a route to the tertiary airport of Stansted near Essex in October 2019, this was a short-lived venture. Years earlier, the aviation company had also exited Manchester Airport.
The Amritsar-London Stansted flight had incidentally begun operations mere months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The thrice a week service - intended "to facilitate Sikh pilgrims aspiring to visit Punjab on the occasion of Guru Purab or the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev ji" was the first ever to connect the two airports. The company had also mulled launching a Mumbai-London Stansted route in 2020.
(With inputs from agencies)
