In the past 2 years, Air India has been very ambitious in expanding their American foot print, offering competitive nonstop options to compete with hub and spoke giants like Emirates and Qatar Airways. With the Tata group deciding to acquiree the once dying airline, money has become a problem of the past, with the Tata group investing billions of dollars in capital to revive the airline. They have recruited Campbell Wilson, a top class airline CEO to take control of the airline, bringing about fast changes to the airline.
Air India currently values their US segment a lot, and as a result has been investing a lot of money into improving the products they offer on these routes. In order to compete with the likes of Emirates and Qatar Airways, you need to be able to offer state of the art products that lead the industry, something that the current aging fleet of Air India just can’t do.
Air India’s Ambition For An American Footprint
In early 2023 placed one of the largest aircraft orders in aviation history, and unveiled new cabin design interior with state of the art seats. While waiting to receive their new fleet and retrofit their older fleet, the airline has been fast to lease 777 aircrafts from Delta Airlines for many of their high demand US routes, especially their San Francisco and New York service, as these routes are in high demand. Outside of flying nonstop to New York from Delhi and Mumbai and nonstop to San Francisco from Bengaluru, Mumbai, and New Delhi the airline does also fly to Chicago and Washington DC. Air India as of now does not have the largest footprint in the American market, though they do soon plan to offer more flights to cities like Los Angeles, Dallas, and Seattle.
Within the United States, Air India currently does not hold strong partnerships with any of the US airlines, which is generally keeping them at a competitive disadvantage, as they are missing out on the opportunity to expand their American horizon past simply the flights they operate. Currently being a member of Star Alliance has led to the airline building somewhat of a partnership with United Airlines, the major US airline with the largest Indian footprint, bur other then that not much else has happened. The partnership with United is not a very strong one, and it could be beneficial for Air India to strengthen the current partnership they have, potentially trying to build an overseas hub in Newark or San Francisco.
Make Newark or San Francisco an International Hub
United Airlines has a huge footprint in Newark, San Francisco, Houston, and Chicago. Air India should aim to make some of these into their overseas hubs, specifically San Francisco and Newark, as these cities are their bread and butter. Regular business travel generally serves these cities, but holiday travel is something that serves a wider range of cities, allowing for people traveling during the holidays to potentially book tickets that connect in Newark or San Francisco. While Air India currently wants to get more breadth in their current cities, it would not hurt to build depth in these 2 cities. To start off both cities have large Indian populations, and therefore would serve as great options for Air India to serve with multiple routes.
Let’s start of with Newark as I think Liberty International Airport would be a great city for Air India to serve multiple destinations, especially given the fact that they could use their 787-8 fleet to reach this city, unlike San Francisco. Air India currently serves the cities of Mumbai and New Delhi with their 777 aircrafts, but could add many other routes using their 787 aircrafts. Examples of cities they could serve include but are not limited to Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. To start off both Bengaluru and Hyderabad are tech hubs, and with New York being a financial hub, the flight will attract a lot of business travel. Even if Austin or Miami were to become the new financial hub of the country, one stop connections with United would be very convenient for travelers. On top of this, there is Ahmedabad, the capital of the Indian state of Gujarat. The American state of New Jersey has a large Gujarat diaspora population and that too Gujarati people are generally spread out across the United States, making the option of connecting in Newark even more appealing.
Lastly, San Francisco is also an option, though not as promising as Newark, being another city that is a world tech hub and a city with a large Indian population. Currently, San Francisco is the most served city by the airline, and while the city already draws in a lot of demand, it would not hurt to further ties with United to fill up more seats. On top of this, San Francisco would benefit from potentially having a flight to Hyderabad, as it is the second largest tech hub in India.
Conclusion
Overall, expanding a partnership with United Airlines would not be a bad idea of Air India, as they would be able to make Newark an overseas hub and expand their footprint by selling tickets on United Airlines flights. Air India is not a hub and spoke airline like middle eastern airlines, and therefore it is an airline that needs to be able to live on partnerships, and idea that I discussed in another article.
Work Cited:
The Sky Wire 