Air France is growing its long-haul network this summer with the addition of a Paris Charles de Gaulle-Chennai route.
The carrier will operate three weekly nonstop flights to the southeast Indian city from June 14 on board a three-class Boeing 787-9, equipped with 30 seats in business, 21 in premium economy and 228 in economy.
Chennai becomes the fourth Indian destination in Air France’s network alongside Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.
During the summer 2020 season, the SkyTeam alliance member will operate 24 weekly flights from Paris to the airports in India. Meanwhile, partner KLM will operate 14 weekly flights from Amsterdam to Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.
The launch of the Paris Charles de Gaulle-Chennai route fills the gap left by Jet Airways, the bankrupt Indian carrier.
Jet Airways launched flights between the two cities in October 2017, operating 5X-weekly to Chennai alongside its daily service between Mumbai and Paris Charles de Gaulle.
However, since the airline ceased flights in April 2019, the Paris-Chennai market has remained unserved nonstop.
Preliminary data from Sabre Market Intelligence shows that there were 125,542 two-way passengers between Paris and Chennai in 2019, the third largest O&D traffic between the countries behind Paris-Delhi and Paris-Mumbai. About 85% of the passengers between Paris and Chennai last year flew indirect.
Photo credit: Anna Zvereva
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