American Airlines announces direct Bengaluru-Seattle flight

Bengaluru: Ahead of US President Donald Trump's visit to India on February 24, American Airlines on Saturday announced that it would operate a daily service from Bengaluru to Seattle on the west coast from October.

"As the non-stop flight will be the first between Bengaluru and any US city, the airline will operate a 285-seater Boeing 787-9 jet on the long-haul route," said the Bengaluru international airport operator in a statement here.

The new route will give passengers easier and faster access to San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Denver, Arizona, Dallas, Chicago, West Coast and East states on a one-stop flight as compared to multiple stopovers, currently.

"The service will also meet corporate customers' demand for travel to Seattle and adjoining areas across the US west coast," said Bangalore International Airport Ltd Chief Executive Hari Marar in the statement.

American Airlines is expanding its codeshare arrangement to include Seattle-based Alaska Airlines, one of the biggest operators of flights along the west coast, where corporates in cities like San Diego have operations in Bengaluru.

"We will soon have direct flight to Tokyo in Japan and Munich in Germany, taking our service to 28 overseas cities," Marar added.

The Airlines will be resuming service to India 8 years after withdrawing its flight to 2012.

As the third busiest airport after Mumbai and New Delhi, the Kempegowda terminal served 34-million (3.4 crore) flyers in 2019, including 41-lakh international passengers.

"We are investing Rs 13,000 crore to expand the facilities with a parallel runaway and second terminal," said Marar earlier.

Domestic traffic continues to dominate the traffic with 2.9 crore passengers using the airport in 2019.