Air India (AI, Delhi International) has announced it will terminate flights from Delhi International to Birmingham, GB (including via Amritsar) and Madrid Barajas due to "operational issues" related to aircraft shortages and the closure of the Pakistani airspace, the Times News Network has reported.
The airline said it currently has over twenty-three aircraft grounded and awaiting repairs. According to the ch-aviation fleets module, this number includes six B787-8s used by the carrier on routes to Madrid and Birmingham.
In addition, the closure of the Pakistani airspace extended the duration of Air India's flights to Europe, which in turn raised the number of crew members needed to operate them. Facing a shortage, the Indian flag carrier decided to suspend the two routes.
According to the ch-aviation capacity module, Air India currently operates 3x weekly to Madrid and 6x weekly to Birmingham, including three flights via Amritsar.
Flightradar24 ADS-B data shows that both routes from Delhi were extended by about an hour of flight time after Pakistan closed its airspace on February 27, 2019.
In Europe, Air India also flies from Delhi to Copenhagen Kastrup, Frankfurt International, London Heathrow, Milan Malpensa, Paris CDG, Rome Fiumicino, Stockholm Arlanda, and Vienna. It also flies to Frankfurt and London from Mumbai International, and from Ahmedabad and Bengaluru International to London. Flights from Mumbai and Bangalore are not affected by the closure of the airspace over Pakistan as they do not need to overfly the country on the shortest routes, while services from Ahmedabad are affected to a lesser degree.
Separately, LCC IndiGo Airlines (6E, Delhi International) said that if the Pakistani airspace does not open until March 20, it will have to operate its new route from Delhi to Istanbul Atatürk via Doha Hamad International. The carrier's service to the Turkish gateway is due to launch on March 20 and will be IndiGo's longest westbound international route. It will be operated with an A321-200neo. Most of the airline's international flights to the Gulf area are unaffected by the Pakistani airspace closure. Flights from Amritsar, Chandigarh, Delhi, and Lucknow to the Middle East have to take longer routes, extending the flight time but not so much as to require an additional fuel stop.
