Air India To Start Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner Service Between Bengaluru & London Gatwick In August

To meet the ever-expanding demand for passenger travel between India and the UK, Air India will soon add another route between Bengaluru in South India and London Gatwick Airport. The flight will be one of many that the carrier currently operates to Gatwick on top of its busy Heathrow schedule out of India.

Bengaluru to London Gatwick

Air India will start flying between Bengaluru (BLR) and London Gatwick (LGW) from August 18. The airline will operate five weekly services between the two destinations using its Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft on the route, featuring 18 lie-flat seats in business class and 238 seats in economy. Campbell Wilson, Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director, Air India, commented,

“We are delighted to offer our guests convenient, nonstop flights between Bengaluru and London Gatwick. This new route caters to the growing demand for travel between these two important business and leisure destinations, and strengthens our commitment to expanding our global network.”

For the first time, Bengaluru will have three airlines connecting it with London. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic also offer nonstop flights from BLR to London’s busiest airport, Heathrow (LHR).

More flights to Gatwick

Air India’s current BLR-LGW service will operate according to the following schedule:

Photo: Abdul N Quraishi – Abs | Shutterstock

Air India has expanded its schedule to London Gatwick in recent times. With the latest service, its total count of flights to and from London Gatwick will increase to 17 times weekly. The airline currently connects four other Indian cities to London Gatwick: Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Goa, and Kochi. Air India also offers more than 30 weekly flights to London Heathrow as well as six times weekly to and from Birmingham.

In the works for months

Air India’s current announcement isn’t much of a surprise. Those who have been following the carrier will know that it has been planning BLR-LGW flights for a while. Simple Flying reported earlier this year that Air India was planning to start this service on April 1. However, it removed this route temporarily, as reported in March.

Air India has also been expanding its presence at other international destinations and recently started flying between Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL) and Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) in Vietnam, using its Airbus A32oneo aircraft in a two-class configuration. It started this service on June 1 and competes with other nonstop flights offered by Vietjet and Vietnam Airlines.

Photo: Rahul Sapra | Shutterstock

Later this month, the carrier will also add more Dreamliner flights to three European cities as well as start a new service to Switzerland from Delhi. From June 22, Air India will increase its Amsterdam flights from four weekly to daily and Milan flights from five weekly to daily. Furthermore, it will add another flight to Copenhagen, taking the frequency on the route to 5x weekly.

Related

Summer Demand: Air India Adds More Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner Flights To 3 European Cities

Air India’s Amsterdam, Milan, and Copenhagen services are getting a boost this summer.

The carrier has also added a nonstop service between Delhi and Zurich starting 16, marking its entry into Switzerland. Like for most of its other European routes, Air India will deploy the Dreamliner to Zurich and will operate this service four days a week: Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.

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