Indian PM Narendra Modi's flight to US skips Frankfurt stopover, courtesy advanced aircraft....
Indian PM Narendra Modi's flight to US skips Frankfurt stopover, courtesy advanced aircraft....
In what can be called a break from over a decade-long practice, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not going to make a stopover at Frankfurt en-route to US.
The prime minister's plane, Air India One, will not have to make the stopover in Frankfurt, as was the case in the past due to the advanced aircrafts. The Indian leader is reaching the US for the Quad summit in Washington and United Nations General Assembly address in New York.
Air India One, the VVIP aircrafts used for ferrying president, vice president and PMs arrived from the US last year in October. The state-of-the-art aircrafts were bought at the cost over Rs 4,500 crore. The aircrafts have the capacity to fly long distances without making the refueling stopover, which was the practice in the past.
His plane left Delhi on Wednesday and used Pakistani airspace in its journey. Earlier, Pakistani PM Khan used airspace over Indian exclusive economic zone when he was on a visit to Sri Lanka.
This is the second time, new Air India One is ferrying PM Modi. The first trip in the aircraft was to Bangladesh in March this year, which was a visit for a short duration of time.
In the past, regularly, Indian PMs’ planes have made stopover 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.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's plane had also made regular stopovers in Frankfurt, which provided much needed break from the long journey. It takes over 12 hours to reach the United States.
