Mumbai: The world's largest airline, American Airlines, commenced its maiden direct flight from Delhi-Chicago taking off from New Delhi early this morning. The 16-hour direct flights, cut down four hours of flying time from the current average of 20 hours a day, and have been scheduled to land at Chicago at 5:20 am in the morning.

The service has been launched with a code-share partnership with Air Sahara to provide connectivity in the US and India, to passengers of both airlines.

Speaking on the occasion, Craig Kreeger, vice president, Europe and Pacific, American Airlines, said, "American Airlines has identified India as a focus market for its growth plans and will make concerted efforts to ensure that the new service is a success."

Indo-US air-traffic is currently approximately 2.75 million passengers annually, growing at 5 per cent per annum.

American, American Eagle and the AmericanConnection regional airlines serve more than 240 cities in over 40 countries with more than 3,800 daily flights. The combined network fleet numbers more than 1,000 aircraft.

Through its hub at O'Hare airport in Chicago, American Airlines will offer connectivity to passengers from India to 125 cities including Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Miami, New York, Montreal, Orlando, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Raleigh / Durham, Washington and Toronto.

Says Ronojoy Dutta, president, Air Sahara, "For Air Sahara this is a major step towards achieving recognition as a player in the international scenario. We are the first private airline to fly across the Atlantic through a code share agreement with American Airlines."

The code share contract with Air Sahara will enable American Airlines' customers to make easy connections throughout India on the Indian airlines domestic network of 25 cities and 126 flights.

Adds Dutta, "With our code-share, our frequent fliers can avail of their COSMOS points even for booking American Airlines flights, offering them a benefit that no other domestic airline can offer at present".