Air India to launch Australian services

[Andi O]

Daily Delhi-Melbourne flights begin 1st Nov 2010 with B777:)

[Brian Wilkes]

Midnight flights no doubt Andy?

[Andi O]

Dont be so cynical Brian, you will be please to know that I beleive them to be daylight arrivals and departures!! About 7am arrival and 4pm departure...to be confirmed

[Brian Wilkes]

Great news mate!
What variation of 777 are we looking at or to early at this time.

[lloyd fox]

777-300er

[Jarden S]

They got a great new livery on some of them too!

[Oliver Gigacz]

According to the latest Melbourne Airport flight schedule.

Services will begin on November 1st with the arriving flight number as AI412 at 07:30 and leave as AI411 at 21:45.

You still cannot book flights on Air India's homepage. So I don't know whats going on.

http://www.melbourneairport.com.au/fids/scheduled/pdf/Web_Weekly_Schedule.pdf

[Paul f.]

You still cannot book flights on Air India's homepage. So I don't know whats going on.

Maybe its a hint, you dont have to be rocket scienetist to work that out.

[lloyd fox]

Oliver it has been delayed to whenever, because they cannot get approval .It isn't happening 1 November.

The Indian Govt will not permit the service as they believe it will not be profitable.

That is why i was glad to see a few in BNE the past few weeks.

[Russell D]

Yes!! My prayers have been answered :D

They got a great new livery on some of them [777] too!

I'm right with you Jarden ;)

[Jim Liu]

Oliver it has been delayed to whenever, because they cannot get approval .It isn't happening 1 November.

The Indian Govt will not permit the service as they believe it will not be profitable.

That is why i was glad to see a few in BNE the past few weeks.

DEL MEL, along with planned DEL SFO, is 99% dead.

[Will H]

From yesterday's Travel Today:

Air India has at last been granted permission to fly to Melbourne by the country’s civil aviation ministry, reports in India have claimed.

India Express.com quoted airline sources as saying the flights were “recently” approved.

But the delay has damaged its marketing strategy as flights will miss the peak winter season, the report said.

A meeting was taking place in Melbourne today with representatives from the airline.

Flights were originally slated for November 1 and then delayed until November 20, but no date has been confirmed.

http://www.travelweekly.com.au/getattachment/da6fcd60-2daf-4f5d-8c99-581e786bb03f/pdf.aspx

NB The original article is here at Indian Express, not India Express: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/delayed-ticket-to-oz-makes-ai-lose-out-on-winter-traffic/702480/

While the flights have now been approved, it sounds as though AI isn't confident of them as they will miss the Oz summer.

Interesting to note MEL is still on top of its game. AI looked at flying into SYD and BNE but MEL gave incentives and was cheaper to fly to.

[James M Smith]

They got a great new livery on some of them too!

Err, all the 773ERs have all been delivered in Air India's (now not so) new livery, which really does look great on both the 772LR and the 773ER.