Iran conflict: Rising operation costs, fares add to West Asia flight nightmare

NEW DELHI: The expanding war in West Asia is giving twin nightmares to airlines — especially of India due to the closure of Pakistan airspace for them — and passengers stuck here and abroad. Connectivity remains the primary concern as bringing Indians stranded abroad safely home is highest priority. Secondly, a sharp hike in operating costs for airlines along with a demand-supply mismatch has led to fares skyrocketing for passengers. Airlines say a minimum 10-12% hike in West Asian fares is unavoidable even as they keep an eye on ever-changing airspace closures in the war zones.

Air India has done a payload analysis and if Saudi and Oman airspaces get impacted, its flights to Europe, UK and North America will become unviable. Govt is yet to clear Air India’s several months’ old request to allow its Boeing 787-9s (not AI’s legacy Dreamliners) and Airbus A350s to fly from Delhi to Leh, enter China (passing waypoint called Hotan) and then take the Central Asia route to the west — bypassing the entire war zone.




AI had some time back made a presentation to the aviation authorities on the Hotan waypoint route in China. “This is a very high terrain area as we propose to enter China from Leh side and then go beyond. The B787-9 and A350s have additional oxygen storage which allows them longer time to descend to 10,000 feet by flying out of the high terrain region in case of single engine failure and then get oxygen supply while diverting to airports in the Central Asian region. All studies have been done and this has been found technically feasible,” said sources.

IndiGo is also badly impacted, as are other Indian carriers. On the other hand, western airlines like Lufthansa and United are not much impacted by the West Asian crisis on their flights to and from India thanks to Pakistan airspace being open to them. AI has made a strong case for getting clearance for using the Hotan route will rid it of the “constant nuisance” of Pakistan airspace closure for flights to and from the west.

The crisis has led to a sharp increase in the operating cost of carriers, which has led to a massive increase in ticket prices with demand-supply mismatch also adding to the fare fire. For instance, an Indian student, who had come to Delhi from Ireland late last month to attend his grand father’s last rites, now faces one-way fares of upto Rs 4 lakh for returning to college.

A senior official of an Indian airline said: “Insurance cost for flights to West Asia have soared by as much as Rs 30-40 lakh for a wide body’s return trip and Rs 90 lakh to a crore for a wide body’s return journey. Aviation turbine fuel (ATF) price this month was hiked by 6% over the previous month. Rupee keeps crashing to new all-time lows. We have to take much longer routes. Our costs have gone through the roof. The flights to West Asia hardly have any passengers and are full on the way back. At this time, we are operating to bring back home our compatriots and not due to commercial reasons.”

Elaborating on the spike in operating expenses, officials of airlines say: “The additional insurance premium for West Asian flights — which is over and above the fleet insurance — alone has led to increase in ticket price by about Rs 20,000 and Rs 30,000-35,000 per passenger on a narrow and wide body. The way fuel prices has risen and Rupee crashed, fares hikes of 10-12% are imminent for West Asia flights.”

With flights reduced and huge uncertainty over operations, airlines say they are having a tough time selling tickets. “We are unable to sell inventory on these flights (especially ex-West Asia flights) in advance and filling up aircraft on short notice (usually a few hours) is leading to low flight loads, thus higher cost of operation is resulting. Flights to west Asia are operating with very low loads or nearly empty,” they add.

Airlines recently requested govt to consider some relief. “Pakistan airspace closure started on April 24, 2025, and since then operating costs for Indian carriers with substantial western operations like AI Group and IndiGo have risen. We have been asking for some fiscal relief like from excise or GST,” said officials.