Indians travelling to UK will heave a sigh of relief now as Air India has announced a non-sop flight from Ahmedabad to London Heathrow starting from August 15. The same aircraft will fly on to Newark, an airport in New Jersey that is in New York metropolitan area.
Currently, travellers from Ahmedabad have to fly to London via Mumbai which takes 12.5 hours to reach Heathrow. "The new non-stop flight will take only 9.5 hours, reducing the travel time by 3 hours," said Nirbhik Narang, station manager, Air India Ahmedabad.
At present, flyers from Ahmedabad to Newark too fly via Mumbai. Now they too will be able to go through the new flight which will have halt of two hours at London.
The flight AI-171 will leave Ahmedabad every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 5am from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport reaching London at 10.15am (local time). After a brief halt at London, the same aircraft will leave for Newark at 12.30pm (local time) reaching at 3pm (local time).
In the return leg, flight AI-172 will leave Newark every Monday, Thursday and Friday and will reach Ahmedabad via London.
The national carrier will deploy Boeing 787-Dreamliner for these new flights which will have 18 business class seats and 238 economy class seats.
Around 6 lakh Gujaratis live in the UK and a non-stop flight to Ahmedabad was a long pending demand.
