How Pakistan's airspace ban has hit India's airlines

NEW DELHI: It wasn’t the extreme Delhi heat that saw Air India officials break into sweat on Wednesday. In addition to the burden of Pakistan closing its airspace after the February 26 Balakot airstrike, oil companies have now raised the price of fuel. The longer routes required to avoid flying over Pakistan are forcing airlines to burn more fuel and money. Now 2.5% more expensive, fuel for international flights will cost $700 per kilo litre in May, up from $668 last month. Pakistan’s airspace restrictions are expected to stay in place till at least May 15. TOI explains how Indian airlines have been affected.

As many as 400 flights per day are affected due to the closure of Pakistani airspace. The bulk of these, reports said, have rerouted further south to Oman airspace while already busy corridors in Iran have seen more than 100 flights added.



Senior air traffic control officials say India has not suffered loss of over flying charges as the same number of planes is still operating over India while crisscrossing between the west and parts of Southeast Asia. Instead of flying over the Delhi airspace, they are now doing so over Mumbai airspace while taking the longer route.

Air India's (AI) nonstop flights between Delhi and the US are now taking a fuelling stop that adds about three hours to the flight length.

IndiGo’s Delhi-Istanbul flight is being forced to stop for fuel at Doha and Ahmedabad each way.

AI is routing flights over Mumbai and Ahmedabad, and then turning over the Arabian Sea to head to Muscat and then fly to their destination.
The detour adds 1.5 hours to flights to Europe and an hour to flights to Dubai.

Among international airlines that have been forced to reroute are Singapore Airlines, Finnair, British Airways, Aeroflot, Thai Airways


Air India
As the only Indian carrier that flies to Europe and the US, AI is the worst affected airline. It could lose another 100 crore this month until the ban is lifted. AI has already suffered a 372-crore hit in extra expenses and revenue lost on cancelled or curtailed flights. That’s about 6 crore daily.


IndiGoThe airline launched its longest route Delhi-Istanbul on March 20. But instead of being a direct flight as planned, the closure of Pakistan airspace has forced it to operate with a fuelling stop, which forces IndiGo to burn an extra 2,500-3,000 kg of fuel each way, a source familiar with the matter said.

SpiceJet

The airline’s flights between Delhi and the Gulf have been affected. Its Delhi-Kabul flight has been cancelled since the closure of the airspace.


Graphic: Anil Dinod; Source: flightradar24.com; ops.group; Reuters

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