News from my local airport, with Birmingham Airport gaining an additional five services to India a week. 
Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner at Birmingham Airport -Image, Economy Class and Beyond.
The increase will see the airline scale its services from once a week to six flights a week.
The airline will increase its services from Amritsar from one flight a week to three, whilst three flights a week will operate to Delhi. Previously, the airport was connected with seven flights a week, which was scaled down to one due to the pandemic.
The additional flights will be phased into the timetable between October and December, to allow local passengers to connect easily.
In Quotes
Campbell Wilson, Chief Executive of Air India, said:
“Adding frequency and improving connectivity from major Indian cities to more international destinations is a significant focus. It is a clear signal of our intent, and an early step towards a much bigger aspiration.”
Tom Screen, Aviation Director for BHX, added:
“We’re doing backward somersaults of joy at the prospect of increasing our India flight frequency to six a week. So many of our customers want this. We’re thrilled it’s happening.”
Restoring services
With big trunk routes now in position as airlines recover their networks, we now come to the routes that are much more in the periphery, that connect key markets but have suffered due to the downturn and collapse.
It’s welcoming to see long-haul traffic return to Birmingham Airport – as it allows people to directly connect to destinations without the fun of going up the M6 to Manchester or down the M40 to Heathrow (and the airport still has a distinct lack of scheduled transatlantic traffic as I’ve noted in the past, with long-haul traffic being funnelled to Dubai).
Hopefully, the return of Air India in strength will allow other airlines to take another look and consider operating routes from the airport.
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