Summary
- Vistara has launched a new long-haul service from Mumbai to Frankfurt, operating six times a week with its Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
- Vistara will face competition from Lufthansa, which operates daily flights between Mumbai and Frankfurt.
India’s full-service carrier, Vistara, has launched another long-haul service to Europe, this time connecting India’s commercial center, Mumbai, with Frankfurt. The airline serves this route with its Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, which are used for its long-haul flights.
Mumbai-Frankfurt service begins
Vistara has started flying between Mumbai and Frankfurt, its latest international service among the various others it has started or announced in recent months. The airline’s inaugural flight on this route flew on November 15 and will operate six times a week, just like its Delhi-Frankfurt service. Vinod Kannan, Chief Executive Officer, Vistara, commented,
“Sensing a need for an Indian airline offering world-class experience and connecting to long-haul destinations in Europe from Mumbai; we started 5x direct flights to London Heathrow. We are now delighted to start 6x weekly service to Frankfurt as our second European destination from India’s financial capital. We are confident that our customers will appreciate and prefer flying with India’s finest airline when planning to travel on this route.”
The Mumbai service also comes at a time when Vistara has started offering complimentary WiFi service to its Club Vistara members on all its international flights operated by its Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet as well as Airbus A321neo aircraft.
Schedule
Vistara’s Mumbai-Frankfurt flight operates according to the following schedule:
|
Sector |
Flight no. |
Days of operation |
Departure |
Arrival |
Tickets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Mumbai – Frankfurt |
UK 0027 |
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays |
13:00 |
17:30 |
|
|
Frankfurt – Mumbai |
UK 0028 |
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays |
20:20 |
09:10 (+1) |
Vistara will compete with Lufthansa on the Mumbai-Frankfurt sector. The German flag carrier operates daily flights out of Mumbai, one of the many Indian cities it flies to.
Photo: Abdul N Quraishi – Abs | Shutterstock
The India-Germany sector is reasonably busy, with Air India, Lufthansa, and Vistara connecting the two countries with non-stop flights. Per data from Cirium, there are more than 500 return flights between Germany and India in November, with Lufthansa operating most of them out of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Bengaluru. In January, Lufthansa will also add Hyderabad to its network.
Vistara’s international expansion
The latest flight from Mumbai is part of Vistara’s larger international expansion program. The airline is not holding back from offering more overseas connections even as its days as an independent airline are numbered. The Vistara brand will cease to exist once it merges with Air India, but until then, it will continue to operate as a separate entity.
Photo: Airbus
The carrier has focused a lot on Mumbai over the past year and launched several other services out of the city, including flights to Bangkok, Jeddah, Muscat, Mauritius, and Colombo. It also recently launched flights between Delhi and Hong Kong and will soon start flying between Delhi and Bali.
While the airline will not order any new aircraft, it still has to take a few more deliveries and will primarily use the new aircraft for new international routes it plans to launch in the coming months.
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