Air India increases Delhi to Vancouver flights to daily

Air India on Sunday announced the increase in frequencies between Delhi and Vancouver, Canada, from 3x weekly to daily service with effect from August 31.

The enhancement in frequency caters to growing traffic between India and Canada, and has been enabled by the return to service of the wide body Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft with three class configurations of first, business and economy, a statement from the company said.

Manufacturer Boeing has been working closely with Air India following its acquisition by Tata Group to restore aircraft that had been grounded for prolonged periods due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other reasons.

The progressive restoration of the aircraft has already allowed Air India to increase schedule resilience and will allow further frequency and network increases over the coming months.

“This increase in our frequency between Delhi and Vancouver is very welcome for many reasons. It is another sign of recovery from the pandemic and caters to strong customer demand. More importantly, it marks the first step in restoring Air India’s fleet and international network,” Campbell Wilson, MD and CEO, Air India, said.

“We are pleased to mark this significant milestone, and the team at Air India is hard at work to enable more expansion in the near future,” he added.

Air India’s wide body fleet currently stands at 43 aircraft, of which 33 are operational. This is a significant improvement from 28 aircraft that the airline was operating till recently. The remaining aircraft will be progressively returned to service by early 2023, the statement added.