Air India has become the first airline to fly over the Arctic Ocean (North Pole). Air India's Flight AI 173 flew from Delhi to San Francisco on Independence Day. Actor Vivek Oberoi was also in this historic flight. Air India has launched a new route, the flight service between Delhi and San Francisco, over the North Pole. Apart from this, Air India is preparing to bring its 19 standing aircraft back into the fleet.
This new route of American flight will also save fuel over time. The introduction of service from the new route by Air India will reduce the flight time by about one and a half hours and this will save fuel in the range of 2,000 to 7,000 kg per flight. The flight time will now be 13 hours instead of four and a half. This service was started on 15 August.
Air India hopes that by October this year, its 19 grounded aircraft will rejoin the fleet. The engineering department of the airlines has started work to bring these aircraft back to the fleet in a phased manner. Two Boeing 787 aircraft will be included in the first phase of the news agency IANS, followed by four Boeing 777 aircraft in the second phase. All aircraft will be included in the fleet before winter.
Air India has planned to spend around Rs 500 crore to put these aircraft back in operation. This government airline has a fleet of about 128 jet passenger planes. Apart from this, Air India is also going to start new flights to Canada and Africa. Preparations have been completed for the Mumbai-Nairobi and Delhi-Toronto flights starting in September. After this, the flight of Delhi-Chennai-Bali will start on October 27.
Significantly, this year Air India has stopped its flight between New Delhi to Los Angeles. In the country, Air India is also preparing to start flights on Mumbai-Dehradun-Varanasi-Patna and Delhi-Khajuraho-Varanasi route.
The government has taken steps for the revival of Air India, a public sector airline that is facing economic crisis. For this, the government will start the disinvestment process soon. In a meeting on 28 June 2017, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs in principle approved the strategic disinvestment of Air India and its five subsidiaries.
