EWR-DEL Nonstop

[AAG2000]

Someone pointed out that Continental has included a Newark-Delhi nonstop in its IATA winter draft schedules:

http://www.iata.org/sked/edraftschedules/index

Sure enough, it''s in there:

CO82 EWR-DEL 2045 2110+1
CO83 DEL-EWR 2330 0450+1

The flights are daily, operated by 772''s, and scheduled to run for the whole winter season.

The question is, do they really intend to operate the flights? I haven''t seen anything about a DOT filing. However, there must be a huge market for nonstops from the NY area to India, so I''m sure it would be a success. And I don''t see why it wouldn''t be technically feasible, since EWR-HKG is substantially farther.

 

[AAmech]

Also India is very restrictive in its air service. Does CO have rights to fly to India? I think they limit service by American carriers to DL, NW, and UA. Maybe its a codeshare with DL?

 

[AAG2000]

Yeah, I was thinking maybe they were somehow taking advantage of another airline''s rights, possibly even doing a reverse codeshare like Virgin Atlantic used with Air-India in order to get around restrictions. Both Delta and Northwest fly to India, so I guess that''s possible. Also, I am fairly sure that AI has a fair number of unused frequencies, as they are increasing their EWR-CDG-BOM service to 5x weekly this summer.

 

[Falco]

No, this will be flown by CAL itself. It''s been on the drawing board for quite some time. The opening of Afghan airspace made it feasible for the 777.

 

[AAG2000]

I know it will be operated by CO, but the question is whose route authorities they will be using. Apparently they have their own unused authorities to India, but they''ll need permission from the Indian government (unless they''ve been quietly working on this behind the scenes already, which I don''t doubt).