Kolkata: Twin-aisle plane’s first domestic run

KOLKATA: A wide-body aircraft with twin aisles that had been purchased to fly the international sector, did its first commercial flight between Delhi and Kolkata on Thursday morning, as the carrier deployed the biggest plane in its fleet to meet the demand on the day Kolkata opened its skies to domestic flights. Most other airports had resumed flights on three days earlier on Monday.
“Vistara has resumed flying to Kolkata and operated India’s first Boeing B 787-9 Dreamliner on the Delhi-Kolkata route marking the aircraft’s first commercial flight to the city. The airline will operate on the route with the same aircraft on Friday as well,” Vistara’s chief commercial officer Vinod Kannan said. The plane with 299 seats operated with 250 passengers either way. The last three rows on all flights are required to be kept empty to isolate passengers that may display Covid-19 symptoms.
The airline took delivery of the aircraft on February 27 and it flew into India on February 29. It was supposed to fly to an unannounced international destination and had been deployed on some domestic routes for crew training. But it did its first full-fledged commercial operation on Thursday to fly passengers from Delhi to Kolkata and back on Thursday. With people set to undertake only essential travel and leisure and business travel as well as international flights still a long way off, it will be used on domestic sector for now.