NEW DELHI: Air India on Tuesday said it will partially restore flight operations that had been reduced following the June 12 air crash that killed 260 people.
The airline said the partial service resumption will see restoration of some frequencies from August 1, as compared to July. The full restoration of flight operations was planned from October 1.
Flight operations were scaled back as part of a “safety pause” after a Boeing 787 operating from Ahmedabad to Gatwick crashed moments after take-off on June 12. All but one of the 242 people on board and 19 others on the ground were killed.
“That pause enabled Air India to perform additional precautionary checks on its Boeing 787 aircraft as well as accommodating longer flying times arising from airspace closures over Pakistan and the Middle East,” Air India said in its statement.
With the partial restoration, Air India will operate more than 525 international flights per week on 63 short, long and ultra long-haul routes, it said.
From August 1 to September 30, Air India will operate three weekly flights between Ahmedabad and London Heathrow, replacing the current five weekly flights between Ahmedabad and London Gatwick.
Some flights that were reduced earlier are being reinstated, the airline said.
{{/usCountry}}Some flights that were reduced earlier are being reinstated, the airline said.
{{/usCountry}}It said Delhi-Zurich flights will increase from four every week to five weekly flights starting August 1. In the Far East, Delhi-Tokyo Haneda will return to full daily service from August 1, while Delhi-Seoul Incheon will resume five weekly flights from September 1.
The airline added that Delhi-London Heathrow route has resumed full 24 weekly services from July 16.
However, several routes will remain reduced. These include, Bengaluru-London Heathrow that are currently operating six weekly flights and will reduce further to four from August 1.
Amritsar-Birmingham remains at two weekly flights until August 31 and will return to three weekly flights from September. Delhi-Birmingham,Delhi-Paris, Delhi-Milan, Delhi-Copenhagen, Delhi-Vienna, and Delhi-Amsterdam will continue to operate with fewer frequencies than usual. Delhi-Amsterdam will resume daily flights from August 1, Air India said.
It added the Delhi-Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver, and New York (JFK and Newark) will continue to operate with reduced frequencies. The Mumbai-New York (JFK) route will see a drop in flights from seven to six weekly flights from August 1 and Delhi-Chicago will operate four flights a week in August, up from three.
Flights to Australia, Delhi-Melbourne and Delhi-Sydney, will continue at five weekly flights each, it stated, adding that, Delhi-Nairobi will operate thrice a week until August 31, then suspend services through September.
The statement also said routes such as Amritsar-London Gatwick, Goa (Mopa)-London Gatwick, Bengaluru-Singapore, and Pune-Singapore would remain temporarily suspended till September 30.
“As the schedule reductions taken as part of the Safety Pause had been implemented until 31 July 2025 and the restoration to full operation is being phased, some services initially planned to operate between 1 August and 30 September 2025 will be removed from the schedule. Air India is proactively contacting affected passengers to offer re-booking on alternative flights or a full refund, as per their prefer India apologizes for the inconvenience,” it concluded.