Varanasi: As the first airline to begin the hub-and-spoke services, Air India is leading a phased nationwide rollout that will progressively connect more domestic spoke (smaller local region) cities in addition to Varanasi to its primary hubs in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, unlocking seamless, end-to-end international travel for millions of Indians. Over next few months, the airlines aims to introduce ‘easy connect’ services from several other Indian cities, including Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Chennai, Goa, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kochi, Mumbai, Patna, Vadodara and Visakhapatnam.Speaking at the inaugural function on Thursday, Air India chief executive officer & managing director Campbell Wilson said India is a major force in global aviation, yet, for decades, a substantial share of Indian travellers flying abroad routed journeys through overseas transit points- often at the cost of comfort and convenience. Air India’s ‘easy connect’ flight is a response to this. Nearly 25 million passengers travel long-haul to and from India annually, of which, close to 20 million are connecting travellers – and around 85% (approximately 17 million) of them currently transit through overseas hubs rather than Indian airports.Air India’s ‘easy connect’ services are flights from spoke airports to hub airports, earmarked to provide seamless connectivity to international destinations beyond the hub airports.This means, travellers from cities that do not have direct flights to many international destinations can now begin their international journey from their home city with unprecedented ease with check-in to final destination at the origin airport. Immigration clearance will be at the point of departure instead of at the hub airport for seamless international transit through the hub airport, without having to re-check baggage. This enables travellers to fly via Delhi or Mumbai as international transit passengers, eliminating need for repeated processes and significantly reducing travel complexity and unfamiliarity usually associated with the transit experience at a foreign hub.Passengers are required to complete certain pre-departure and transit processes for seamless journey, including mandatory DigiYatra enrolment for Indian nationals and they must ensure boarding passes are uploaded on the app prior to departure. Web check-in and Customs declaration are not available at spoke airports. Bookings for Air India’s Easy Connect flights under the new hub-and-spoke model are now open across all channels, including Air India’s website, mobile app, contact centre and travel agents. Flight AI1111 from Varanasi-Delhi offers seamless connections to 17 international destinations within four hours of arrival at Delhi, including London, Rome, Milan, Frankfurt, Zurich, Dubai, Riyadh and Jeddah, among others.
