I’ve flown over a dozen airlines to and from India in just the last five years ranging from Singapore Air, Eva Air, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Lufthansa, British Air, Korean Airlines , Malaysian Airways, KLM, United, and American Air. Since I live in California, I have not had the chance to fly on Continental from Newark or Delta from JFK. The attraction of flying on a US carrier and consolidating frequent flyer miles is high. I took the American Airlines non stop flight between Chicago and New Delhi a number of times. Sadly AA never put its best planes or friendliest crews on this segment. Even in Business Class, I received frowns upon asking for water, the seats would not flat and they tried to sell me an $80 device just so I could charge my laptop. (Singapore offers electrical outlets in economy plus!).
My seat neighbor on one incident was a Dallas exective who was required to fly AA by his company and he said he made the trip 6-8 times a year. And hated it. Today AA announced that they would stop flying the ORD-DEL segment. Frequent travelers to India won’t miss them, sadly. I sure hope that Delta/United pick up the gates from AA. And here is my vote from Delta non-stops from LAX to DEL.