Flights to Toronto, Chicago

In an attempt to re-invent itself, national carrier Air India may introduce a brand new product in the market by launching non-stop daily flights from New Delhi to Toronto and Chicago. The move is part of the overall restructuring process at Air India that includes route rationalisation.
The loss-making airline would be aiming at launching these routes in the coming winter schedule, added a source.The airline is working on setting up its hub at the newly opened Terminal 3 at the Delhi airport. Once that is finalised, it would start these two routes, the source added. The airline hopes to fetch 40 per cent load factors on these flights in the first year of its operations and hopes to break-even on these routes in the third year of its launch.

The airline currently operates daily scissor operations to Toronto via its hub in Frankfurt from New Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. On this sector, its operating costs come under immense stress as Frankfurt airport has proved to be much costlier. The airline would also be looking at shifting its European hub to another location. It could be Copenhagen, Dublin or Birmingham which are much cheaper than the Frankfurt airport, source added.