Atlanta-based Delta Airlines has announced it would restart its direct flight from New York to Mumbai on Dec 22, 2019.
Last year, Delta Air Lines Inc. announced that it would restart flights between the US and Mumbai, but left up in the air whether New York or its hometown hub in Atlanta would win the connection again.
The wait ended as Delta announced that the route would take off from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, linking the financial centers of the world’s two largest democracies.
Delta’s new route to Mumbai will be the only nonstop link between New York and Mumbai by a US carrier. The carrier used to operate flights between India’s largest city and the U.S. in 2006 but ended the route in 2009 after facing stiff competition from Middle East carriers.
According to a Delta release, New York is the “market to India with the largest base of corporate customers.” The flight will leave from Terminal 4, the international gateway at JFK that Delta spent $1.2 billion to revamp in 2013.
A Boeing 777-200LR will be deployed on the route, which will take off from New York at 9:15 p.m. and arrive at 10:50 p.m. the following day. That puts the flight time at just over 15 hours.
In its press release announcing the route, Delta was clear to mention that it was against the so-called illegal subsidies that the Middle Eastern carriers received which allowed them to be so profitable on routes between North America and Asia.
“Subsidies pose a serious threat to American workers,” said Peter Carter, the carrier’s Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer. “Every long-haul route lost or foregone to subsidized Middle East carrier competition costs more than 1,500 American jobs, so we are pleased to bring this route back into service thanks to landmark agreements the Trump administration reached with Qatar and the U.A.E.”
United is the only other US carrier that operates flights to Mumbai from its hub in neighboring Newark, NJ.