American Airlines starts direct Delhi-Chicago flights; in code share with Air Sahara from today

17 November 2005

Mumbai: The world's largest airline, American Airlines, commenced its maiden direct flight from Delhi-Chicago taking off from New Delhi early this morning. The 16-hour direct flights, cut down four hours of flying time from the current average of 20 hours a day, and have been scheduled to land at Chicago at 5:20 am in the morning.

The service has been launched with a code-share partnership with Air Sahara to provide connectivity in the US and India, to passengers of both airlines.

Speaking on the occasion, Craig Kreeger, vice president, Europe and Pacific, American Airlines, said, "American Airlines has identified India as a focus market for its growth plans and will make concerted efforts to ensure that the new service is a success."

Indo-US air-traffic is currently approximately 2.75 million passengers annually, growing at 5 per cent per annum.

American, American Eagle and the AmericanConnection regional airlines serve more than 240 cities in over 40 countries with more than 3,800 daily flights. The combined network fleet numbers more than 1,000 aircraft.