BENGALURU: Repeated requests from Kannadigas settled in the California belt for a direct flight from Bengaluru to San Francisco, was the reason behind the longest commercial flight by an Indian airline which debuted on Sunday, Air India sources said.
This was possible after Trans Atlantic clearance (permission to fly across the Atlantic) was given for Kempegowda International Airport (KIA), they said. A Boeing 777 aircraft was used for the journey. “The chunk of people from Karnataka, particularly the IT crowd, who commute between Bengaluru and IT centres in the Californian belt, particularly Silicon Valley, wanted such a flight to save time as well as to ease commuting woes of their parents.
The hassles suffered by elderly people in reaching New Delhi or Mumbai and then changing from a domestic flight to an international flight by themselves, after a four-hour stay at the airport, was proving stressful for professionals and their parents,” a source said. “The success of Air India’s Boeing 787 (Dreamliner) non-stop flight between London and Bengaluru (AI 177/AI 178) since November 2018 played a key role in this decision,” another source said.
Former Chairman and Managing Director of Air India Pradeep Singh Kharola (now aviation secretary) is credited with giving a big push to the proposal mooted by staffers, with Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri responding favourably to the idea, the source added. “After the decision to operate the longest flight run by India was taken, it took dedicated efforts to pursue the proposal to get clearance,” an official said. The two cities are separated by 13,993 km and a 13.5-hour time difference.
The big plus is that since the clearance is given for the airport and not any airline, the move opens the gates for other private airlines to fly direct routes from Bengaluru to San Francisco, the official added.
The first set of flights (AI 176 and AI 175) between the two cities were fully booked and huge demand is perceived based on enquiries received so far, he said.