“This will be Air India’s longest route covering over 14,000 km in approximately 16 hours. This is bi-weekly service flight. This route is also one of the top 10 longest routes in the world, in terms of distance flown,” he explained. According to him, Air India has always been on the forefront of supporting the nation on all counts, whether it is evacuation connecting people to various destinations, AI has been on the forefront.

“Today is a historic moment, we are connecting Silicon Valley of India with Silicon Valley of the US,” he added. Happiness and enthusiasm of passengers who wanted to board the maiden flight from Bengaluru was palpable and infectious. Of the 221 passengers who had booked for the first flight, the honour of the boarding first passenger went to Ramaswamy Rajkumar, who was welcomed with a bouquet of flowers by the crew members.

While Hari Marar, managing director and CEO at the Bangalore International Airport Ltd., said that this is the moment for BIAL. “The fact is that it has taken many years to get a direct connection between Bengaluru and the USA, and also San Francisco”.