Air India explores alternative routes for North America flights amid Pakistan airspace curbs

New Delhi: Air India is looking at various alternatives for its North America flights from the national capital, including operating the services with a technical stop in a city within India, to reduce operational costs that have shot up due to the Pakistan airspace closure, sources said on Friday.

Currently, Tata Group-owned Air India operates 71 flights a week to North American destinations and out of them, 54 services are from the national capital.

The airline flies to Chicago, New York, Washington, San Francisco, and Newark in the US, and to Toronto and Vancouver in Canada.

In his message to the staff on Friday, Air India MD and CEO Campbell Wilson said there have been a number of network-related developments and the airline has temporarily adjusted some of its Europe and US routes in response to recent airspace restrictions, as well as adding a few technical stops.

"We have made good progress in identifying other alternatives so aim to reduce the number of overseas tech-stops, and restore more non-stop operations, soon," he said, without disclosing specific details.

Following retaliatory measures taken by India against Pakistan in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack, the neighbouring country, on April 24, barred Indian airlines from using its airspace.

The airspace closure has resulted in longer flying hours, higher fuel consumption, payload and aircraft availability issues as well as crew flying duty time limitation challenges for airlines. All west-bound flights flying from north Indian cities, including Delhi, are now taking alternative longer routes over the Arabian Sea.

Against this backdrop, Air India, the only Indian carrier having direct flights to North America, is looking at various options that will help reduce costs.

With the airspace closure, Air India's flights from Delhi to North America are taking longer routes and are also having a technical stop in a European city on the way. The technical stops generally at Vienna (Austria) or Copenhagen (Denmark) mostly to refuel the aircraft.

The sources said the airline is exploring the possibility of having a stop within India, possibly Mumbai or Ahmedabad, for its flights from Delhi to North America so that these flights might not have to make a stop in a European city.

Such an arrangement will help the airline in addressing the challenges of higher fuel burn, operational expenses and Flying Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) for the crew, the sources noted.

Having a stop in a European city means higher expenses, including landing charges and fuel costs.

Under the norms of aviation regulator DGCA, flight crew can work continuously only for eight hours and with normal flight time getting longer, the crew will be in breach of the Flying Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules.

When there is a landing enroute, the airline can seek permission for the crew to do their duty for additional hours.

In the case of long haul and ultra long haul flights -- those above 14 hours duration -- airlines will have two sets of crew.

Earlier this week, a senior airline industry official, who has extensive experience in the commercial side, told PTI that the additional time for a 16-hour flight to North America will be around 1.5 hours.

For 1.5 additional hours, the cost will be about Rs 29 lakh, including landing and parking charges on account of a technical halt in an airport enroute, the official had said.

On April 28, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said the civil aviation ministry was assessing the situation arising out of the Pakistan airspace closure and that it was working with airlines for solutions.

Aspects related to airlines as well as passengers, including possible increase in airfares due to higher operational costs, against the backdrop of the airspace closure are being assessed by the ministry.

On Thursday, sources said Indian airlines, including Air India and IndiGo, have submitted their inputs on the impact of the Pakistan airspace closure to the ministry.

The sources had also said Air India has estimated that the additional expenses in case the airspace closure is in place for a year would be around USD 600 million and has suggested about some kind of financial assistance to tackle the situation.

An analysis of the number of overseas flights and back of the envelope calculations based on increased flight time as well as approximate expenses by PTI showed that the additional monthly operational costs for the Indian airlines could be over Rs 306 crore due to the Pakistan airspace closure.

Meanwhile, on April 30, India also barred Pakistan airlines from using its airspace as part of retaliatory measures in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 that killed at least 26 people, mostly tourists.