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| Air India explores alternative routes for North America flights amid airspace curbs | | |  AGENCIES
NEW DELHI, May 2: Air India is looking at various alternatives for its North America flights from the national capital, including operating the services with a technical stop in a city within India, to reduce operational costs that have shot up due to the Pakistan airspace closure, sources said on Friday.
Currently, Tata Group-owned Air India operates 71 flights a week to North American destinations and out of them, 54 services are from the national capital.
The airline flies to Chicago, New York, Washington, San Francisco, and Newark in the US, and to Toronto and Vancouver in Canada.
In his message to the staff on Friday, Air India MD and CEO Campbell Wilson said there have been a number of network-related developments and the airline has temporarily adjusted some of its Europe and US routes in response to recent airspace restrictions, as well as adding a few technical stops.
"We have made good progress in identifying other alternatives so aim to reduce the number of overseas tech-stops, and restore more non-stop operations, soon," he said, without disclosing specific details.
Following retaliatory measures taken by India against Pakistan in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack, the neighbouring country, on April 24, barred Indian airlines from using its airspace.
The airspace closure has resulted in longer flying hours, higher fuel consumption, payload and aircraft availability issues as well as crew flying duty time limitation challenges for airlines. All west-bound flights flying from north Indian cities, including Delhi, are now taking alternative longer routes over the Arabian Sea.
Against this backdrop, Air India, the only Indian carrier having direct flights to North America, is looking at various options that will help reduce costs.
With the airspace closure, Air India's flights from Delhi to North America are taking longer routes and are also having a technical stop in a European city on the way. The technical stops generally at Vienna (Austria) or Copenhagen (Denmark) mostly to refuel the aircraft.
The sources said the airline is exploring the possibility of having a stop within India, possibly Mumbai or Ahmedabad, for its flights from Delhi to North America so that these flights might not have to make a stop in a European city.
Such an arrangement will help the airline in addressing the challenges of higher fuel burn, operational expenses and Flying Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) for the crew, the sources noted. Having a stop in a European city means higher expenses, including landing charges and fuel costs.
Under the norms of aviation regulator DGCA, flight crew can work continuously only for eight hours and with normal flight time getting longer, the crew will be in breach of the Flying Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules.
When there is a landing enroute, the airline can seek permission for the crew to do their duty for additional hours.
In the case of long haul and ultra long haul flights -- those above 14 hours duration -- airlines will have two sets of crew.
Earlier this week, a senior airline industry official, who has extensive experience in the commercial side, told PTI that the additional time for a 16-hour flight to North America will be around 1.5 hours. |
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