What are the possibilities for Mumbai - Madrid/ Barcelona nonstop flights will it be successful

Depends on the number of Indians in those areas and Spaniards in India, and on their living standards also, I would guess...

I don't see it happening anytime soon, it was very limited even before the COVID, so I think with the number of seats that other airlines offer will be enough, EK, QR, EY, TK, LH, AF, KLM, BA...

on top of that I think the traffic will be mainly holiday makers and VFR with low yields, I don't think Spain and India have big business links.

Madrid has better connections with Americas, so will there be any prospects for onward connections

What would be the good nonstop connection to europe that is viable post corona pandemic in addition to London Paris Frankfurt Munich Amsterdam Zurich and Rome

Birmingham (BHX) is the obvious one.

Istanbul IST

gkirk wrote:

Birmingham (BHX) is the obvious one.

Fuling wrote:

Istanbul IST

These already existed pre-Covid.

MAN is really the only one that can be supported IMHO. VS should bring back that plan. FCO/MAD may work, but they would need US connections to even being close to viable. I hope AI brings back their BOM-FRA flight. While not a new city, at least AI had different timings then the usual EU-BOM flights

MAD could happen because of US/LA connections, but I don’t think Iberia really fits the indian market service wise. Could be wrong. Btw Iberia did fly MAD-BOM-NRT for a hot moment back in the day,

CaliguyNYC wrote:

FCO/MAD may work, but they would need US connections to even being close to viable.

Iberia and Alitalia don't have the robust U.S. networks to add much, frankly. BA, AFKL, LH, and Emirates will offer much more comprehensive 1-stop USA-India routings.

MIflyer12 wrote:

CaliguyNYC wrote:

FCO/MAD may work, but they would need US connections to even being close to viable.

Iberia and Alitalia don't have the robust U.S. networks to add much, frankly. BA, AFKL, LH, and Emirates will offer much more comprehensive 1-stop USA-India routings.

Never quite get why US customers in particular are fond of one plus stop options other than personal greed and bribed miles when travelling on the company dollar

The EU/UK India market is robust enough without a few transit passengers for the most part

rutankrd wrote:

Never quite get why US customers in particular are fond of one plus stop options other than personal greed and bribed miles when travelling on the company dollar

There are hundreds of secondary USA-India markets that have no non-stop service, so one-stop via Europe is a valued option.
In addition to the possibility of connecting via a US hub.

- PDX-EU-India
- CVG-EU-India
- AUS-EU-India
- MSP-EU-India

etc....

rutankrd wrote:

Never quite get why US customers in particular are fond of one plus stop options other than personal greed and bribed miles when travelling on the company dollar

The EU/UK India market is robust enough without a few transit passengers for the most part

Maybe they travel to a destination in India that doesn't have non-stop service from the US, but does have non-stop service from Europe.

Let's say you want to fly from Salt Lake City to Bangalore. There are no direct flights from Salt Lake City to India, so you'd have to fly a a larger American hub first. Let's say New York JFK. But then there are no direct flights from JFK to Bangalore, so you first fly New York to Delhi. And then you have to get from Delhi to Bangalore....

Meanwhile you can fly KLM Salt Lake City - Amsterdam - Bangalore, having one stop instead of two.

Amsterdam has the benefit of being in the middle of the route, having more dense connections in each direction. It's the reason they can make both Salt Lake City and Bangalore work, while no airline could make India work from Salt Lake City or make the USA work from Bangalore. By transferring in Amsterdam, you can bypass both New York JFK and Delhi.

factsonly wrote:

rutankrd wrote:

Never quite get why US customers in particular are fond of one plus stop options other than personal greed and bribed miles when travelling on the company dollar

There are hundreds of secondary USA-India markets that have no non-stop service, so one-stop via Europe is a valued option.
In addition to the possibility of connecting via a US hub.

- PDX-EU-India
- CVG-EU-India
- AUS-EU-India
- MSP-EU-India

etc....

Wasn’t actually disputing the connection opportunities more rather being little facetious to be honest . Almost every thread about long haul turns into how to get from Austin/SFO to Bangalore as if it’s the only market on the planet by certain contributors imho

Atchut wrote:

What are the possibilities for Mumbai - Madrid/ Barcelona nonstop flights will it be successful

More than BOM- Spain, what's needed is BOM- Italy.
The Mumbai to Spain traffic would be a niche premium tourist segment- heading to those fancy little islands. But again, that's small and seasonal. Next would be the student and business traffic. Beyond that, I don't see what more ties the two sides have. The Indian migrants in Spain come mostly from the north India region, hence DEL-Spain is more ideal.
As of now, BOM- Italy is a big missing link.
Since AI has it's hub in Delhi, most of their European connections are from DEL. So EU carriers have a nice chance to try BOM.

rutankrd wrote:

factsonly wrote:

rutankrd wrote:

Never quite get why US customers in particular are fond of one plus stop options other than personal greed and bribed miles when travelling on the company dollar

There are hundreds of secondary USA-India markets that have no non-stop service, so one-stop via Europe is a valued option.
In addition to the possibility of connecting via a US hub.

- PDX-EU-India
- CVG-EU-India
- AUS-EU-India
- MSP-EU-India

etc....

Wasn’t actually disputing the connection opportunities more rather being little facetious to be honest . Almost every thread about long haul turns into how to get from Austin/SFO to Bangalore as if it’s the only market on the planet by certain contributors imho

Sorry but this doesn’t explain your post. I think you were talking about FF miles or something (greed???). Anyway, facetious or not, maybe toning down the hate might be a good take away.

The main takeaway about EU-India traffic is how low it is outside of a few routes. Without NA connections, very few routes would exist. Also strong O&D routes are also few. I think AI actually built a pretty decent DEL-EU portfolio of cities (which also had some onward connecting traffic like ARN-DEL-BKK). I really don’t see BOM getting more routes, other than MAN, unless a BOM based airline emerges. That said, I would see BOM getting another nonstop to the US before a new EU city (with ORD-BOM on AA or IAD/SFO-BOM on UA as my top picks).

SPICEJET does fly very successfully ATQ-BGY/FCO with A330neo: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/cs-tky

So, does Italy offer more potential over Spain, or is a larger punjabi community living in Italy compared to Spain?

debonair wrote:

SPICEJET does fly very successfully ATQ-BGY/FCO with A330neo: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/cs-tky

So, does Italy offer more potential over Spain, or is a larger punjabi community living in Italy compared to Spain?

That's cargo only. It is not scheduled passenger service

EU traffic to India is decent only from DEL. From BOM, only the larger cities have any traffic (London, FRA, Paris, AMS, Zurich). And connections to US from Zurich are minimal with any connections are incidental and at a very low price. Only possibility is BOM- Manchester, Rome or Milan, an Italian airline was operating BOM-Milan at one point. But with this COVID epidemic, it will many more years before any possibility of any new traffic routes to come to fruition.

UK to put India on its red list effective early morning on Fri 23 April. From that time, all arrivals to the UK from India have to go into quarantine in a Government-supervised hotel

India-EU non-stop ~9hr routes are perfect sweet spot for WB utilization and crew scheduling, RT and service within 24 hr cycle.. A load restricted A321XLR will be even better to expand P2P routes.

Right now sixth freedom carriers are selling on price and service quality, because India has no decent FSC or LCC and EU carriers are not interested to go beyond 3-4 cities in India. India-LHR is an exception where Indian carriers continue to do well.

DTWLAX wrote:

That's cargo only. It is not scheduled passenger service

Not true at all! Spicejet doing passenger service under travel bubble for selected tour operators, source:
https://italiavola.com/2021/03/20/spice ... eo-hi-fly/

debonair wrote:

DTWLAX wrote:

That's cargo only. It is not scheduled passenger service

Not true at all! Spicejet doing passenger service under travel bubble for selected tour operators, source:
https://italiavola.com/2021/03/20/spice ... eo-hi-fly/

Interesting, did not know about this. I had heard only about the LHR service.
However, looks like this is a limited operation only during the Covid times. https://italiavola.com/2021/03/25/spice ... to-giugno/

CaliguyNYC wrote:

MAD could happen because of US/LA connections, but I don’t think Iberia really fits the indian market service wise. Could be wrong. Btw Iberia did fly MAD-BOM-NRT for a hot moment back in the day,

AI flew DEL-MAD 4x weekly on the 787 until Covid.