Amid rising scholar demand, Air India to double US flights

Air India is rising the frequency of its flights to the US by over two instances to 21 flights every week from August 7, in comparison with lower than 10 weekly flights operated in July, as demand from college students travelling to US universities for the graduation of fall semester surges, an Air India official mentioned.
The doubled frequency, nonetheless, remains to be half the 40 flights every week that Air India operated previous to the US authorities order in May banning travellers from India because of rising Covid-19 instances right here.
Travel restrictions imposed by the United States, along with a curb on Indian travellers to the UAE, had led to a scenario the place college students travelling to the US discovered themselves with considerably fewer journey choices and inflated ticket costs. India and China are the highest two international locations from the place scholar visas are issued for the US.
In a tweet, the flag provider mentioned: “Air India will operate additional flights between New Delhi & Newark on 6th,13th, 20th & 27th August ‘21. These are in addition to the existing flights operating on this sector”. In addition to Air India, American carriers United and Delta additionally fly between the 2 nations. In the US, Air India operates flights to New York (John F Kennedy), Newark, Chicago, Washington and San Francisco. Following the US journey ban order, Air India needed to cancel a number of of its flights.

“Because of the curtailed schedule, we had to reschedule the passengers in a staggered manner leading to some passengers getting reschedules that were almost a month after their original flight,” the Air India official mentioned, including that the scenario is anticipated to be higher in August.
Sector trackers, nonetheless, identified that not all college students could possibly be part of the autumn semester on time as a result of curtailed flight schedules.

“With flight shortages and visa delays, many students who had planned to join US universities this fall, may not be able to join them on time. While the US government is allowing students to enter the country 30 days prior to the start of their studies, there is a shortage of flights to the country, which has led to a decline in seats and rise in ticket prices,” EaseMyTrip CEO Nishant Pitti advised The Indian Express.
“In fact, we are expecting an unprecedented surge of students travelling in the second half of this year as many of them have deferred their courses and study plans by a year,” he mentioned.