News
Delta confirms return to Mumbai in 2019
June 1st 2018
U.S. heavyweight, Delta Air Lines, has confirmed its return to Mumbai “in 2019”, following “agreements between the U.S. and the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to address the issue of government subsidies provided to state-owned carriers in those nations”. Read More »
Delta terminated flights to Mumbai in 2015 because of a large capacity increase into the sub-continent by Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways that made the Delta route unsustainable. Interestingly, United Airlines never ceased its flights to India. The airline continues operating daily services between Newark and Mumbai and New Delhi, respectively.
Atlanta-headquartered Delta signed a strategic partnership with India’s Jet Airways and Air France-KLM in 2016, which will provide the U.S. airline with a significant domestic and regional network on Jet Airways. Jet does not fly to the U.S. and Emirates and Etihad have recently cut capacity to North America.
Delta now has more fuel-efficient aircraft to operate from the U.S. to India since it began accepting delivery of 25 on-order A350-900s. It used to fly B777s to India.
“It is exciting to be able to announce Delta's return to India from the U.S. as part of our vision to expand Delta's reach internationally,” said Delta CEO, Ed Bastian. “We are thankful to the president for taking real action to enforce our Open Skies trade deals, which made this new service possible,” Bastian added.
Earlier this year, the Qatari government agreed to disclose Qatar Airways’ profit and loss accounts and refrain from operating fifth freedom flights to the U.S.; Emirates Airline and Etihad Airways followed suit shortly thereafter, although without a commitment to add or expand current fifth freedom routes.
