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Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday inaugurated Air India's direct flight between Mumbai and San Francisco. The flight will be operated thrice a week. After the Tata group took over the loss-making Air India in January this year, the airline has been working on expanding its services and fleet. After inaugurating the flight, Scindia said the country's civil aviation sector is on the cusp of transformation and boom. "We need to push further, stronger, faster...," the minister said. Last month, Air India Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Campbell Wilson said the airline will increase its market share to 30 per cent in both domestic and international routes.
Cabin crew constraints are impacting Air India's ultra long haul flights, with the Tatas-owned carrier deciding to either reschedule or cancel certain services to San Francisco and Vancouver, according to airline sources. The sources said the airline is either delaying departures or cancelling some of its ultra long haul flights amid cabin crew shortages and the situation is resulting in inconvenience to passengers in this peak winter travel season. Generally, ultra long haul flights are those having duration of more than 16 hours. "Air India flights AI-183/AI184 (Delhi-SFO-Delhi) for December 10 and December 13 stand cancelled," Air India said in an internal circular on December 9. In another internal circular, the airline said that "due to cabin crew constraints its flights -- AI101 and AI 102 (Delhi-New York-Delhi) as well as AI 185/ AI186 (Delhi-Vancouver-Delhi) were being rescheduled". The airline declined to comment on the issue. On Friday, Air India said some of its fligh