NEW DELHI: Air India will club its Mumbai-New York (JFK) with Mumbai-Newark (EWR) nonstop from Saturday (March 16) to May 31, 2019. The combined Mumbai-EWR flight will operate as AI 191 at 1.30 am, reaching Newark at 8.15 am. The combined EWR-Mumbai will operate as AI 144 and leave EWR at 2.15 pm to reach India at 2.10 pm (next day), all times local.
This is part of the route rationalisation and restructuring AI has been doing since Wednesday due to operational reasons caused by the closure of Pakistan airspace due to which it has to take longer routes from Delhi to the west. Longer flying time means carrying more crew members, constraining the number of flights it can operate. The airline is also facing a shortage of aircraft also with over 23 of them awaiting spares and engines.
AI had on Wednesday announced temporarily suspending its popular Delhi-Madrid-Delhi, Delhi-Birmingham-Delhi and Delhi-Amritsar-Birmingham flights from this Saturday “due to operational reasons till further notice”.
