PM Modi's Air India One flight to Washington will not stopover at Frankfurt, here's why

The new Air India One plane which will charter Prime Minister Narendra Modi to his 5-day visit to the US will not make the customary stopover at Germany's Frankfurt for this reason.

(Image courtesy: Twitter)

Washington: In a break from over a decade long practice, an Indian Prime Minister will not stopover in Germany's Frankfurt en-route to the US. The new Air India One which will charter Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US, will not stopover in Frankfurt, like it has in the past. 

The key reason of the change in the flight plan is new capabilities of Air India One, the VVIP aircraft used for ferrying President, Vice President and PM arrived from the US in October last year. The state-of-the-art aircraft was bought at a cost of over Rs 4500 crore. The aircraft has the capacity to fly long distances without stopovers for refueling.

PM Modi in his five-day visit to the US will attend the Quad summit in Washington and the address the United Nations General Assembly in New York. His plane left Delhi on Wednesday and was allowed to Pakistani airspace. Earlier, Pakistani PM Khan used airspace over India's exclusive economic zone when Khan was on a visit to Sri Lanka.

This is the second time the new Air India One is ferrying PM Modi. It was used during his last visit to Bangladesh in March earlier this year. 

In the past, the PMs' plane has stoped over in Frankfurt, Germany. PM Modi's last visit to US was in 2019, remembered majorly because of the mega diaspora event 'Howdy Modi' in Houston. During that visit as well, PM Modi's plane had made a stopover in Frankfurt. 

The journey to US is 12-hours long and the stopover provides a much needed break from the long journey.