Air India is as international an airline as India has, with the most extensive route network out of India, going into North America, Europe, Africa, Middle – East and Asia. With a fleet of 27 Boeing 787-8s, 18 777s, four 747s and other narrowbody aircraft, Air India was one of the first airlines affected with the CoVid19 outbreak. They had to first cancel flights to China and Hong Kong, then to South Korea and Italy, and recently into UK and Europe  as countries shut down their borders.

A couple of days ago, we started hearing about first GoAir, then  Vistara shutting down their international networks. Brought us to the question of why were we not hearing a similar announcement from Air India, which is the worst affected from such a situation.

Karan decided to go to the bottom of this situation and started analysing the posted schedules of Air India for the rest of the month. It turns out, Air India was not going to shut down their entire network before yesterday when a prohibition on allowing any commercial aircraft in India was announced. But instead, it turns out a lot of their network was being closed down anyways.

Here are some highlights of the routes which were cancelled for the week.

Boeing 787 Operations cut 80% weekly

Boeing 787 Operations were going to be cut down from scheduled 291 international departures weekly (one-way) to only 59 weekly (one-way). 80% of the operations were going to be cut down.

• Ahmedabad – London and v.v.: 0/4 scheduled weekly
• Amritsar – Birmingham and v.v.: 0/3 scheduled weekly
• Amritsar – London and v.v.: 0/3 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Bangkok and v.v.: 0/2 scheduled weekly
• Mumbai – Bangkok and v.v.: 0/2 scheduled weekly
• Bengaluru – London and v.v.: 0/3 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Birmingham and v.v.: 0/3 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Copenhagen and v.v.: 0/3 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Dubai and v.v.: 7/14 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Frankfurt and v.v.: 0/7 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Hong Kong and v.v.: 0/7 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – London and v.v.: 0/7 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Paris and v.v.: 0/7 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Madrid and v.v.: 0/3 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Milan and v.v.: 0/4 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Rome and v.v.: 0/3 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Seoul and v.v.: 0/4 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Shanghai and v.v.: 0/5 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Stockholm and v.v.: 0/3 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Vienna and v.v.: 0/4 scheduled weekly
• Mumbai – Dubai and v.v.: 0/10 scheduled weekly
• Mumbai – Frankfurt and v.v.: 0/4 scheduled weekly
• Kochi – Dubai and v.v.: 3/7 scheduled weekly
• Mumbai – Nairobi and v.v.: 0/3 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Singapore and v.v.: 4/8 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Tel Aviv and v.v.: 2/5 scheduled weekly
• Delhi – Tokyo and v.v.: 2/4 scheduled weekly

Boeing 777 Operations cut 40% weekly

Boeing 777 Operations were going to be cut down from scheduled 110 international departures weekly (one-way) to only 66 weekly (one-way). 40% of the operations were going to be cut down. The 777 was going to see fewer cuts primarily because it was being used to fly to the USA where people were still being allowed to fly.

• Delhi – Jeddah and v.v.: 0/3 weekly
• Delhi – London and v.v.: 0/7 weekly
• Delhi – San Francisco and v.v.: 9/10 weekly
• Delhi – Toronto and v.v.: 6/7 weekly
• Mumbai – Jeddah and v.v.: 0/4 weekly
• Mumbai – London and v.v.: 0/7 weekly

Boeing 747 Operations cut 100%

The Boeing 747 is primarily used for VIP missions, and on other times flights to Jeddah. All flights to Jeddah are closed for now.

Besides, International Departures on the Airbus A321 fleet were cut by 46%, to 63 weekly departures from the original 116 scheduled for the week. On the Airbus A320 fleet, 300 weekly departures were scheduled, and we were going to get 84 weekly departures.

Bottomline

Air India, had already cancelled most of their flights through the last week of March 2020 and were scheduled to operate only 286 weekly flights, mostly to the USA and some other countries while they had a schedule of 863 weekly flights. So, a massive cut of 67% flights was planned, till the time the country announced all international flights would be barred for a week.  

(Research by Karan Patel)

---

Liked our articles and our efforts? Please pay an amount you are comfortable with; an amount you believe is the fair price for the content you have consumed. Please enter an amount in the box below and click on the button to pay; you can use Netbanking, Debit/Credit Cards, UPI, QR codes, or any Wallet to pay.

(Important: to receive confirmation and details of your transaction, please enter a valid email address in the pop-up form that will appear after you click the ‘Pay Now’ button. Even though the amount you enter has to be in INR, you may use an international card to process the transaction.)

We are not putting our articles behind any paywall where you are asked to pay before you read an article. We are asking you to pay after you have read the article if you are satisfied with the quality and our efforts.