Iraq airspace reopens, Air India restores nonstop US flights, cuts Rome detours

NEW DELHI: In a “Diwali gift” to travellers, Air India has once again made its flights between Delhi/Mumbai and New York (JFK and Newark EWR) nonstop since Wednesday, shaving close to four hours from the travel time of the one-stops these had become since the US-Iran war broke out this Feb 28. The airline’s operations team, like that of other carriers, does constantly analyses enroute geopolitical situation and as soon as the risk rating for Iraq, Syria and Jordan reduced, it has started got a slightly shorter route available making the flights between Delhi and EWR; Delhi and JFK; Mumbai and EWR and Mumbai and JFK nonstop once again, skipping the Rome Fiumicino stop. Now the journeys become 15-16 hours, instead of the almost 20 hours they took with the Rome stop.The closure of Pakistan airspace since last April had made routes longer between Delhi and the west but the Iran airspace was open till Feb 28 when the US-Iran war broke out. Since then, the non-availability of Iran, Iraq and other enroute airspaces forced fuelling stops to be added. Now while Iran remains out of bounds, the Iraq airspace has become available and AI flight operations has seized the opportunity to make the New York flights nonstops again.

While no one knows when and if Pakistan airspace will reopen for Indian carriers, AI is hoping that Iran airspace opens so that it can add more nonstops to the west. As of now in the current situation, its flights between Delhi/Mumbai and New York are likely to remain nonstop in Nov and Dec. From Jan, the winds become very strong and if the loads are high then fuelling stops may return for some time.“There is load penalty (restriction in number of passengers and/or cargo to carry more fuel for longer routes) since Pakistan airspace closed. So that remains. What has changed for now is that Iraq has become available again and made the flights nonstops again,” said pilots who operate this route.With the devastating economic impact of the US-Iran war on the midterms and Republicans facing a rout there, there is hope that the war will come to an end. If that happens, AI will add much more capacity to the west, including North America.