Air India to reduce domestic capacity by approximately 5% temporarily

Air India is still dealing with the aftermath of reduction in capacity, due to various reasons on their widebody network. These include enhanced checks on the widebody Boeing fleet, as well as a much longer routing in the Middle-East and other ongoing geopolitical restrictions such as the Pakistani airspace restrictions. It has also been reported by other media outlets that in the aftermath of the fatal AI171 incident, Air India’s crew is also refusing flights, while they deal with their own grief and feel unable to operate the flight.

Now, Air India has also reduced a small number of domestic operations, after reducing international operations through July 15, 2025.

Air India to suspend 3 flights through July 15, 2025

Air India will suspend the following flight operations for approximately three weeks. All of these are operated by narrowbody aircraft of Air India:

• Bengaluru-Singapore (AI2392/2393): 7x weekly flights
• Pune-Singapore (AI2111/2110): 7x weekly flights
• Mumbai-Bagdogra (AI551/552): 7x weekly flights

Air India will reduce capacity through July 15, 2025

Air India will also reduce capacity on some flights in the coming days:

• Bengaluru-Chandigarh: Reduced from 14x weekly to 7x weekly
• Delhi-Bengaluru: Reduced from 116x weekly to 113x weekly
• Delhi-Mumbai: Reduced from 176x weekly to 165x weekly
• Delhi-Kolkata: Reduced from 70x weekly to 63x weekly
• Delhi-Coimbatore: Reduced from 13x weekly to 12x weekly
• Delhi-Goa (Dabolim): Reduced from 14x weekly to 7x weekly
• Delhi-Goa (Mopa): Reduced from 14x weekly to 7x weekly
• Delhi-Hyderabad: Reduced from 84x weekly to 76x weekly
• Delhi-Indore: Reduced from 21x weekly to 14x weekly
• Delhi-Lucknow: Reduced from 28x weekly to 21x weekly
• Delhi-Pune: Reduced from 59x weekly to 54x weekly
• Mumbai-Ahmedabad: Reduced from 41x weekly to 37x weekly
• Mumbai-Bengaluru: Reduced from 91x weekly to 84x weekly
• Mumbai-Kolkata: Reduced from 42x weekly to 30x weekly
• Mumbai-Coimbatore: Reduced from 21x weekly to 16x weekly
• Mumbai-Kochi: Reduced from 40x weekly to 34x weekly
• Mumbai-Goa (Dabolim): Reduced from 34x weekly to 29x weekly
• Mumbai-Hyderabad: Reduced from 63x weekly to 59x weekly
• Mumbai-Varanasi: Reduced from 12x weekly to 7x weekly

 Despite these temporary reductions, Air India will continue to operate close to 600 daily flights with its narrowbody aircraft on 120 domestic and short-haul international routes. 

If you receive a notification that you are on one of the affected flights and your flight has been cancelled, you should use their online self-service reaccomodation platform to get on another flight. Air India is also offering complimentary rescheduling or a full refund if you are affected by one of these changes.

Why is Air India doing this cutback?

While Air India has not commented on the reasoning for their cutbacks, there are three major reasons in my mind for why the cutbacks are being implemented for the coming weeks:

• As an organisation, Air Indians are still processing the collective grief of losing colleagues and passengers, and many frontline employees of Air India are undergoing trauma counselling at the moment.
• Air India has also had to cut back operations from Delhi IGI Airport due to the runway upgrade ongoing at the moment, and expected to last through September 2025.
• Travel demand has generally softened a bit over the past two months or so, and while this is not being discussed openly as a slowdown, Air India would do well to reduce flight operations and bunch up the passengers on other flights, rather than have them fly sub optimal loads on certain flights and lose money on these operations.

I feel the correct answer is a mix of all the three reasons, rather than just one of them. In most cases, one flight has been nixed from multiple flights in a day, which will not be an impact on the route, but will bring a bit of sanity to the operations in the short term.

Bottomline

Air India will trim its flights on many routes, and also cut down flights on three sectors, all of which are operated by narrowbody aircraft. The whole exercise is perhaps necessiated with the inability of some crew to operate flights, the current Delhi Airport reduction of capacity, and overall, a reduced appetite for travel at the moment.

What do you make of Air India’s reduction in domestic flights in the coming weeks?

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