Air India reduces flights on 16 international routes, suspends 3 routes
NEW DELHI: Air India said on Thursday it will reduce flights on 16 international routes connecting cities in North America, Europe, Australia and the Far East and suspend three routes between June 21 and July 15.
In a statement, the Tata Group-owned airline on Thursday said the reduction arise from its 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 objective is to restore schedule stability and minimise last-minute inconvenience to passengers,' the airline said in a statement on X.
The move comes days after its flight AI171, bound for London's Gatwick Airport, crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad, killing all but one of the 242 people on board and about 30 people on the ground.
On Wednesday, the airline announced its decision to cut international operations on its widebody aircraft by 15% for the next few weeks to stabilise operations.
On Thursday, the airline said it was contacting affected passengers to offer re-accommodation on alternative flights, complimentary rescheduling or full refunds as per their preference.
The three routes on which flights will be suspended till July 15 are Delhi-Nairobi, Amritsar-London (Gatwick) and Goa (Mopa)-London (Gatwick).
Thursday's statement listed five North American routes that would be impacted due to the changes. It said Delhi-Toronto will operate seven times a week instead of 13, Delhi-Vancouver will see a reduction from seven to five times, Delhi-San Francisco from ten to seven, Delhi-Chicago from seven to three, and Delhi-Washington from five to three weekly flights.
The airline also announced reductions to eight routes in Europe. The Delhi-London Heathrow flights will operate 22 flights every week instead of the existing 24, Bengaluru-London Heathrow will have six flights instead of seven, Amritsar and Delhi to Birmingham will have two flights instead of three, Delhi-Paris will have 12 flights instead of 14, Delhi-Milan will have four instead of seven flights, Delhi-Copenhagen will have three flights instead of five, Delhi-Vienna will have three instead of four, and Delhi-Amsterdam will have five flights every week instead of seven.
The Delhi-Melbourne and Delhi-Sydney routes will also have five flights instead of seven, it said.
The airline said the Delhi-Tokyo Haneda frequency of flights will reduce from seven to six every week, while Delhi-Seoul Incheon will see three flights every week from June 21 to July 5, which will go up to four flights every week from July 6 to July 15.
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