Air India May Restore Some International Flights As Tensions In Gulf Ease

Months after scaling back international operations amid the Middle East conflict, Air India is considering restoring some services, NDTV has learnt.

This comes as the regional situation stabilises and jet fuel prices ease. Air India CEO and Managing Director Campbell Wilson wrote about the development in an internal memo to employees accessed by NDTV.

The recent improvement could allow the airline to reverse some of the schedule cuts if conditions remain stable, Wilson said in the memo.

"The Middle East conflict has abated and, though there's no guarantee it won't re-escalate, the more stable environment has allowed more airspace to become available and fuel prices to significantly moderate. Should this trend continue, we may be able to wind back some of the schedule reductions we'd taken in recent months," he wrote.

Air India had reduced services on select international routes between June and August this year because of prolonged airspace restrictions over parts of the Middle East and record-high international jet fuel prices.

The airline said the temporary adjustments were aimed at maintaining network stability while minimising last-minute disruptions for passengers. Despite the cuts, it continued operating over 1,200 international flights every month across five continents.

He added that another Boeing 787-8 is on its way for retrofit, while around eight more new or refurbished wide-body aircraft are expected to join the fleet this year. This includes a new Boeing 787-9 arriving in India this weekend

On network expansion, Wilson noted that Air India has started four weekly non-stop flights between Mumbai and Tokyo Haneda, complementing its existing daily Delhi-Haneda service.

The airline CEO further mentioned that Air India Express will become the first airline to operate an international passenger flight from Navi Mumbai International Airport with direct services to Abu Dhabi beginning next month. In August, the airline will launch the first-ever direct flights from Guwahati to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, while also expanding its domestic network with a Pune-Amritsar service.

Wilson noted that June marked Air India's best-ever operational performance, with overall on-time performance (OTP) reaching 86 per cent and domestic OTP touching a record 90 per cent.

"While this is helped a little by our temporarily reduced schedule (and benign weather), it also rests on ongoing improvements in aircraft health, systems, focus and procedures", he stated.