SAN FRANCISCO: Bengaluru (BLR) will again be directly connected to San Francisco (SFO) from this winter. Tata Group’s Air India is going to start a twice weekly nonstop between the silicon cities of India and the US this winter schedule, that starts from October-end. United’s proposed BLR-SFO flight keeps getting deferred as western airlines are not overflying Russian airspace — something that India does and makes its highly popular nonstops between India and the west coast viable. For the same reason, American Airlines’ proposed BLR-Seattle nonstop has not been launched yet.
“Bengaluru will get a twice weekly (to start with) to SFO sometime later this winter schedule,” said people in the know. There has been tremendous demand for a nonstop on this route. In fact some Indian origin American entrepreneurs raised the issue of a lack of direct connectivity on the sector during Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal’s visit to the West Coast earlier this month.
