Baby, It’s Cold Outside
     But not for these high fliers from Air India outfitted in Manish Malhotra-designed uniforms.
     Here warming this up considerably Air India people made waltzing through Manhattan look easy as the Indian airline launched services via its candy dandy brand new A350s from Newark to New Delhi January 2.
     Hold on to your hats as Tata Group-owned AI has big plans to gear up its U.S. network with new destinations and additional flights as fast as it can, adding new widebody aircraft to its rapidly expanding fleet.
     As of the latest schedule (December 2024), AI is the only Indian full-service carrier serving five cities in the United States.
     These include Chicago O’Hare (ORD), Newark (EWR), New York (JFK), San Francisco (SFO) and Washington Dulles (IAD).
     AI in 2025 is likely to launch new routes to Dallas Fort Worth (DFW), Boston Logan (BOS), Los Angeles (LAX), and Seattle (SEA).
     Currently to North America AI operates routes, connecting Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru to New York-JFK, Newark, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, Toronto, and Vancouver.
     Air India delivers 75% of the available non-stop seats between India and North America for the period that began in October 2024 to February 2025. Star Alliance partners Air Canada and United Airlines boost this share to 94%, dominating direct routes.
     What the airline is going for is a big increase from 13% market share of total India-North America traffic.
     Currently 87% of that vital market share is held by competitors selling one-stop flights through European, Middle Eastern, and East Asian hubs.
     Adding it up, the airline’s future focus on faster, most reliable direct connections between major Indian cities and North America is just the ticket for success.
     Tata, it can be said, has hit the ground and the market in high style.
     Word up, Tata is moving way beyond new destinations for both passenger and cargo as all of this early 2025 news is just a fraction of what Air India intends to be delivering of people, places and things by 2030.
     One bit of heart in all of this: Tata bringing back the high flying powerful airline that JRD Tata founded in 1932,also has reprised the most universally beloved spokesman of the airline business in the world , the Air India Maharajah.
     Stay Tuned . . .