Air India will introduce a flight to Chicago from Hyderabad via Delhi from October 31, 2010. The airline sources said that the airline is also planning to launch a direct service to San Francisco. The airline will deploy Boeing 777-300 extended range aircraft to operate the flight direct from Delhi, they said, adding that for the first time Air India would fly a Boeing 777 from Hyderabad.

Air India is eyeing the US-bound traffic from Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad with the proposed launch of Chicago flight. The airline had earlier announced plans to operate flight services to Melbourne, Chicago and San Francisco from the winter schedule that commences from October 29.

However, the Melbourne flight plan was shot down by one of the independent director's in the airline's board, who recently wrote to the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) stating that it would not be economically viable and only add to the losses of the cash-strapped airline. However, the option for starting direct services to San Francisco is being evaluated.

Government had appointed four Independent Directors --Anand Mahindra, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Mahindra and Mahindra Group; Harsh Neotia, Chairman, Ambuja Realty; Air Chief Marshal (Retd) Fali H Major and Amit Mitra, Secretary General, FICCI in March this year. Malaysian industrialist M A Yousufali was appointed as the fifth Independent Director in May this year.