Air India to launch Delhi–Sydney/Melbourne triangular flights on their B787s

Back in February 2012, I had written a post about the plans Air India had to launch their Boeing 787 flights to go over to Australia, in a triangular flight to Sydney and Melbourne. The timing aspect did not quite work out in the manner they thought they’d like to launch, and late 2012 has now become August 2013, however, they are good to go, and launch a daily flight as of end-August 2013 between these cities. They are going back to Australia after 16 years, and I hope they get enough traffic to justify this decision.

As per AirlineRoutes.net, the flight is going to go 4 times a week in terms of Delhi-Sydney-Melbourne direction, and 3 times a week in terms of Delhi-Melbourne-Sydney direction. Here are the timings:

Delhi – Sydney – Melbourne – Delhi eff 29AUG13 4 weekly
AI312 DEL1345 – 0630+1SYD0800+1 – 0935+1MEL 788 x357
AI311 SYD0800 – 0935MEL1050 – 1835DEL 788 x146

Delhi – Melbourne – Sydney – Delhi eff 30AUG13 3 weekly
AI312 DEL1300 – 0530+1MEL0700+1 – 0830+1SYD 788 357
AI311 MEL0700 – 0830SYD1000 – 1810DEL 788 146

Like you can see, Air India is working on an early morning arrival into Australia, which should help connect with the other intra-country routings. Air India is however not working on connecting Delhi with the UK as the ‘Kangaroo Route’ in terms of synchronised timings, because it seems they are only looking for O&D traffic in India (not transit passengers, but those who stay)

In the most amusing manner however, they have started selling inventory via travel agents, but not loaded up this inventory on their own website or made a formal announcement in this regard. I have a feeling the inaugural is going to be full of Air India and Government of India officials, and there won’t be much for passengers anyways.

Anyhow, if you’re interested, tickets are pricing out at INR 48,000 for a roundtrip. And yes, they will be on this plane.

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