Air India to start restoring its international flight schedule from August 1; was curtailed in wake of AI 171 crash

Indian Express

3 days ago

Air India will start from August 1 the partial restoration of its international wide-body schedule that had been truncated by about 15 per cent due to the airline taking a 'safety pause' after the June 12 crash of its Ahmedabad-London Gatwick flight AI 171 operated by a Boeing 787 aircraft. The full restoration of the airline's international wide-body schedule is expected from October.
The announcement comes a few days after the preliminary report into the AI 171 crash came out. The accident claimed 260 lives—241 of the 242 people on board and 19 on ground. The report identified the primary trigger of the accident—both engine fuel control switches transitioning from 'RUN' to 'CUTOFF' in quick succession moments after lift-off. The causes behind the fuel control switch transition are what the investigators are now focussing on. The preliminary report did not find any fault with Air India, and did not have any recommendation for other operators of the Boeing 787 aircraft or its GE engines.
Apart from enhanced safety inspections of the Air India's Boeing 787 fleet mandated by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) after the Ahmedabad air crash the airline also decided to do its own voluntary checks and adopt a cautious approach in flight operations, leading to delays and cancellations in the week that followed the crash. Airspace closures over Pakistan and parts of West Asia and night curfews at several overseas airports compounded the disruption. In view of these factors, the Tata group airline had announced on June 18 that it was cutting wide-body international flights by 15 per cent.
'That (safety) pause enabled Air India to perform additional precautionary checks on its Boeing 787 aircraft as well as accommodating longer flying times arising from airspace closures over Pakistan and the Middle East. The partial resumption will see restoration of some frequencies from 1st August, relative to July, with full restoration planned from 1st October 2025,' the airline said Tuesday in a release.
The restoration will also see a few changes from the earlier schedule. For instance, the five-times-a-week Ahmedabad-London Gatwick service will be replaced by a thrice-weekly service to London Heathrow from August 1. Delhi-London Heathrow and Delhi-Zurich flight frequencies are being reinstated to weekly 24 flights and five flights, respectively. Delhi-Tokyo Haneda and Delhi-Seoul flights, whose weekly frequencies had been reduced by two flights each, are being reinstated to seven and five weekly flights, respectively. The airline is also reinstating its thrice-weekly Delhi-Nairobi service till August-end, after which it will be suspended for the whole of September.
Most other routes on which flights were reduced will stay at the current frequency levels till September-end. There are also a few routes on which there is a further reduction in flights. For instance, the Delhi-Paris route will have seven weekly flights instead of 12, Delhi-Milan will have three weekly flights instead of four, Delhi-New York (JFK) and Mumbai-New York (JFK) will have six weekly frequencies each instead of seven, and Delhi-Newark flights will reduce to four a week from five. Temporary suspension of three routes—Goa (Mopa)-London Gatwick, Bengaluru-Singapore, and Pune-Singapore—will remain in place till September-end.
'As the schedule reductions taken as part of the Safety Pause had been implemented until 31 July 2025 and the restoration to full operation is being phased, some services initially planned to operate between 1 August and 30 September 2025 will be removed from the schedule. Air India is proactively contacting affected passengers to offer re-booking on alternative flights or a full refund, as per their preference. Air India apologises for the inconvenience,' the airline said.
Sukalp Sharma is a Senior Assistant Editor with The Indian Express and writes on a host of subjects and sectors, notably energy and aviation. He has over 13 years of experience in journalism with a body of work spanning areas like politics, development, equity markets, corporates, trade, and economic policy. He considers himself an above-average photographer, which goes well with his love for travel. ... Read More