In a significant development, Air India is set to introduce its A350 aircraft on the Delhi-Dubai route from May 1, signalling the Tata Group airlines debut of the wide-body plane for international flights. Operating as AI995/996, the aircraft is scheduled to depart Delhi daily at 20:45 hours, arriving at 22:45 hours in Dubai, the airline said in a release on Thursday.
The return flight will depart Dubai the next day at 00:15 hours and arrive in Delhi at 04:55 hours. All are local timings. The A350 aircraft will have 28 private suites with full-flat beds in Business, 24 seats in Premium Economy and 264 seats in Economy.
Air India started inducting the A350 planes this year and are being used for domestic flights for crew familiarisation and regulatory compliance purposes. The airline has placed an order for 40 A350 planes and four of them are in its fleet. Currently, Air India operates 72 flights a week to Dubai from five Indian cities, of which 32 flights are from Delhi.
Air India, IndiGo cancel Dubai-bound flightsEarlier on Wednesday, flights from India to Dubai have been disrupted significantly as heavy rains resulted in flooding of the emirates airport, also one of the worlds busiest airports. Air India, which operates 72 weekly flights from various cities to Dubai, and IndiGo cancelled their services on April 17.
Apart from Air India, Air India Express, Vistara, IndiGo and SpiceJet also operate flights from various Indian cities to Dubai, which is also home to a large number of Indian diaspora.
An Air India spokesperson said due to the impact of adverse weather in Dubai, it had to cancel flights to and from the Gulf nation on Tuesday and Wednesday. We are doing our best to get affected passengers on their way as soon as possible by re-accommodating them on flights in the next few days.
(With PTI inputs)
