National carrier, Air India is looking to launch direct services from New Delhi to San Francisco and Toronto this winter, following the removal of restrictions by the FAA, on the domestic carriers to expand their operations in the US after safety upgrades.

The state-run airline has proposed to fly three weekly flights each to San Francisco and Toronto from New Delhi with a Boeing 777-200LR aircraft, which is likely to be reconfigured to include more seating capacity, the airline has said.

As it stands, Air India’s US destinations include Chicago, Newark and New York JFK, though the San Francisco Bay area has the second largest population of any city in the US – making the proposal for a New Delhi – San Francisco route extremely logical.

The airline previously flew to Toronto until 2012 when they axed the route after only three years of operation, after incurring huge losses on the route.

Air Canada, which also pulled out its services from India on the same grounds in 2007, has already announced the resumption of direct air connectivity between the two countries from November this year.

“We are planning to introduce direct flights services to San Francisco and Toronto from the winter schedule this year. A firm plan, however, is still being worked out,” an airline representative said.

The present 235-seater B777-200LRs are currently in three-class configurations with first, business and economy class, though the proposed reconfiguring of the aircraft would eliminate first class, and reduce some seats from the business class, according to the airline source.

Air India initially acquired eight Boeing 777-200LRs as part of its 67 aircraft order from Boeing in 2006, though has since sold off five of these to Etihad Airways, while keeping the remaining three in its fleet.

Our analysis of OAG Schedules Analyser data over the past ten years shows that Air India began flying to North America in 2007, where it operated a route to New York’s JFK three-times-weekly. In 2010, the airline also began operating to Newark, Chicago and Toronto within the same year, all of which have witnessed an increase in available seat capacity, apart from Toronto which was cancelled in 2012.

The airline now operates almost 380,000 seats between the North America and India, with an equal share in capacity between Newark, JFK and Chicago.