Continental boosts India service

MUMBAI (Reuters) -- Continental Airlines, the No. 4 U.S. carrier, said Wednesday it will launch daily non-stop flights between financial hub Mumbai and New York/Newark from Oct. 31, subject to government approvals.

The Houston-based carrier has operated a New Delhi-New York non-stop route since 2005.

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"We are excited about extending our Indian route network to Mumbai," Jim Summerford, Continental's vice president for Europe, Middle East and India, said in a statement.

The Mumbai-New York/Newark flights will be operated with a Boeing 777-200 aircraft, it said.

U.S. carriers Delta Air Lines (Charts) and American Airlines, a unit of AMR (Charts), also fly to India, where a booming economy is boosting business and leisure travel.

Goodafternoon,

The daily EWR-BRU (Brussels)-flight will be upgraded from 767-400 to 777-200ER, starting 28th of March !!!
We do hope it will last and we hope having Continental N77014 "Peter Max" during one of its visits.
Greetz, Karl

India is booming, especially for IT and business process outsourcing, so more service makes sense, but with Air India going nonstop with new equipment soon it's going to be pretty competitive. Remember this is also a big market for European airlines connecting through LHR, AMS, CDG etc as well as being possibly the major market for airlines from the Gulf like EK, EY, etc.

I've noticed some unorthodox marketing by Delta for their new India service: posters on the windows of neighborhood delis and grocery stores. At first I thought the Indian store owners might just be hanging the posters because they're proud that an American airline is flying to their homeland. But since then I've seen some on non-Indian-owned stores also, which means they're getting paid.

could this be in response to Jet Airways trying to start this route via Brussels starting in August?