Vistara is expanding its presence in Germany’s market with a second route to Frankfurt. The airline, which began flying to the city from New Delhi in February 2021, plans to launch a route from Mumbai in November.

Operations between Mumbai’s Chattrapathi Shivaji International Airport (BOM) and Frankfurt Airport (FRA) will start on Nov. 15 with six flights per week. Service will be onboard Boeing 787-9 aircraft in a three-class configuration.

“Our long-haul routes—connecting Delhi with London Heathrow, Paris and Frankfurt—have been very popular among our customers, which gave us the confidence to offer similar connections from Mumbai, as well,” CEO Vinod Kannan says. “This will be our second long-haul route from Mumbai, in addition to 5X-weekly flights to London Heathrow.”

Vistara, a joint venture between Air India owner Tata Group and Singapore Airlines, now connects Mumbai to a total of 12 international destinations, comprising Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Colombo, Dammam, Dhaka, Dubai, Jeddah, London Heathrow, Male, Mauritius, Muscat and Singapore.

Data provided by OAG Schedules Analyser shows that Lufthansa is the sole operator of nonstop flights between FRA and BOM at present, serving the 4,079-mi. (3,545-nm) route daily using Airbus A340-300s.

Air India also offered a 4X-weekly service from October 2018 until the onset of the pandemic in March 2020. Although flights returned in October 2020, the carrier last served the sector in January 2021, and the route has remained absent from its network ever since. Tata bought Air India in January 2022 and is in the process of merging the full-service carrier with Vistara, whose brand will then be retired.

BOM-FRA is the second new route announced by Vistara in as many weeks following confirmation of a daily New Delhi-Singapore service, starting on Oct. 29 using A321neos.