Why is Air India reducing widebody flying by 15%? How long will it last, and how does it affect you? – Explained

After a spate of cancellations and delays, Air India has announced that it will cancel 15% of its widebody schedule until mid-July as it tries to get its schedule back on track. The airline was already under pressure due to the closure of Pakistani airspace. On June 12, AI171 crashed at Ahmedabad, and the very next day, Israel attacked Iran, leading to a large chunk of airspace being closed in West Asia.

The closure of Iranian and surrounding airspace led to longer flight paths, leading to delays, coupled with the regulator’s mandate to have additional checks requiring more ground time than usual, adding to delays in turnaround times. This led to cancellations and air turnbacks, leading to chaos. Earlier, it took about 18 hours for an aircraft to return to Delhi from a typical European destination; now it takes close to 22 hours, putting pressure on the next set of flights.

The grounding of planes added to the mix, eventually leading to the announcement of flight cuts.

The airline had 83 cancellations in the last six days. It will come up with a revised schedule, reflecting the curtailment, over the next few days. If you are a passenger scheduled to fly with Air India on its widebody network, ensure that your contact details are up to date so that the airline can reach you if there is any rescheduling or cancellation. With many passengers wanting to shift to other flights due to cancellations, it would be wise to look for alternatives offered by the airline immediately after receiving the intimation.

What do the numbers say?

After the loss of VT-ANB at Ahmedabad, the airline has a fleet of 26 787-8 Dreamliners, seven 787-9 Dreamliners, 24 B777s, and six A350s.

Data obtained from Cirium, an aviation analytics company, shows that the airline has 639 flights planned on widebody aircraft per week. The count is higher due to technical stops at Vienna or Kolkata, with each leg being counted as a separate flight, even though it is a technical stop. Out of these, 305 are on 787-8, 80 on 787-9, and 192 on the 777s. There are 62 flights on the A350, six of which are with the airline.

A 15% reduction of the overall schedule would mean 96 flights a week being cancelled. However, it is unlikely to impact the entire fleet and could be restricted to specific fleets. A 15% reduction on the 787-8 would mean a weekly reduction of 45 flights for the airline. In effect, this means hundreds of flights will be cancelled over the next three to four weeks, going by the airline’s guidance for cancellations up to mid-July.

Blow to VIA India campaign

In February, Air India rejigged the timings of its flights to Australia and some to Europe, offering the fastest connection from Sydney and Melbourne to Frankfurt and Paris. A series of geopolitical events since then, along with the deadly crash, will put pressure on the airline for its campaign to attract more transit passengers and establish Delhi as its core hub.

Subsequent airspace closures have led to higher travel times, delays, possible misconnections or longer transfer times. The impact of the crash on forward bookings is unknown at the moment. Typically, there is an immediate impact but stabilises over a period of time as investigations progress and findings are made public. In the case of Air India, the regulator has already informed that it has not found anything of concern on the maintenance side, an exercise which was undertaken as a precautionary measure.

Tail Note

Air India has been in the middle of a turnaround, often dubbed the largest in the world. As per its own admission, its Vihaan.AI transformation has completed two stages of Taxi and Take-Off.

The “Taxi” phase focused on addressing legacy issues and building foundational elements. The “Take-off” phase was centred on developing systems and processes for operational excellence. There will be more questions than answers at this time, on both the crash and the robustness of processes towards operational excellence. It is one thing to create them in good times and another to execute them in times of crisis.