Air India to reduce flights on international routes, suspends 3 overseas routes
PTC News Desk: Air India on Thursday said that the airlines will reduce the flights on 16 international routes and suspended on 3 overseas destinations between June 21 and July 15.
The Tata Group-owned airline, grappling with disruptions following the fatal plane crash on June 12 in Ahmedabad, said the objective is to restore schedule stability and minimise last-minute inconvenience to passengers.
The detailed announcement follows a day after the airline revealed plans to temporarily cut wide-body aircraft operations by 15 percent. As part of this move, flights on the Delhi-Nairobi, Amritsar-London (Gatwick), and Goa (Mopa)-London (Gatwick) routes will be suspended until July 15. According to the carrier, the Delhi-Nairobi route operates four times a week, while both the Amritsar-London and Goa (Mopa)-London (Gatwick) routes have three weekly flights each.
Besides, flights will be reduced on 16 international routes connecting cities in North America, Europe, Australia and the Far East.
The routes in North America, which will see reduced frequencies, are Delhi-Toronto, Delhi-Vancouver, Delhi-San Francisco, Delhi-Chicago and Delhi-Washington.
"The reductions arise from the decision to voluntarily undertake enhanced pre-flight safety checks, as well as accommodate additional flight durations arising from airspace closures in the Middle East," the statement said.
Flight services have also been reduced on several European routes, including Delhi-London Heathrow, Bengaluru-London Heathrow, Amritsar-Birmingham, Delhi-Birmingham, Delhi-Paris, Delhi-Milan, Delhi-Copenhagen, Delhi-Vienna, and Delhi-Amsterdam.
In addition, flights on routes such as Delhi-Melbourne, Delhi-Sydney, Delhi-Tokyo Haneda, and Delhi-Seoul (Incheon) have been scaled back under the updated schedule.
On Thursday, Air India issued another apology to passengers impacted by these service reductions.
On Thursday, Air India again apologised to the passengers affected by these curtailments.
"Regrettably, the time required to perform these enhanced safety checks, along with the application of extra caution, external factors like airspace closures in Iran and the Middle East as well as night-time restrictions at some international airports, along with normal airline technical issues, has led to a higher-than-usual number of cancellations on our long-haul network in the past few days," the Air India chief said in his message.
"This (reduction in services) will also allow us to have more backup aircraft ready to handle any unexpected issues. We understand that this temporary reduction to our schedule may affect your travel plans, and we're deeply sorry for any inconvenience," he said in the message.
- With inputs from agencies
