Air India, the Tata group owned Indian flag carrier is shrinking its International network massively. After initial reports making the rounds, the airline came up with an official release stating the flights which are cancelled along with the duration. The airline has termed the cancellation as a “temporary” measure but “may make” further adjustments to its network, should the extraordinary operating environment prevail, says the release.
The largest impact is to the United States of America, where the airline holds a dominant position in the India – USA market. When the cuts come into effect, Air India’s network to the USA will be smaller than what it was pre-pandemic in January 2020. The airline was privatised in January 2022 and has since grown its network to North America significantly, with the help of stop gap measures like adding ex-Delta Air Lines B777-200LR aircraft for a short period, getting their own legacy fleet airborne after extensive repairs amongst other measures.
Air India’s route rationalisation is effective between June and August 2026 (as of now). The cancellations at its peak would be at 129 flights a week, with the airline continuing to have around little over 1200 international flights each month or an average of 40 a day.
The airline is curtailing 25 services to North America while maintaining 33 flights per week, will reduce 12 frequencies to Europe while maintaining 47 flights, make no further adjustments to the UK maintaining the flights to London and Birmingham at 57 per week, reduce 6 flights a week to Australia, while maintaining eight and plan to operate 158 flights per week to the Far East, Southeast Asia and SAARC regions, and 07 flights per week to Mauritius (Africa). Over 80 flights to the region are being suspended on a weekly basis. The full list of these changes is as below
North America
- Delhi-Chicago: temporarily suspended
- Delhi-San Francisco: reduced from 10x weekly to 7x weekly through August
- Delhi-Toronto: reduced from 10x weekly to 5x weekly through July, increasing to daily operation from August
- Delhi-Vancouver: reduced from 7x weekly to 5x weekly
- Mumbai-Newark service increases from 3x weekly to 7x weekly and Delhi-New York (JFK) remains a 7x weekly service while Delhi-Newark and Mumbai-New York (JFK) services will be temporarily suspended
Europe
- Delhi-Paris: reduced from 14x weekly to 7x weekly
- Delhi-Copenhagen: reduced from 4x weekly to 3x weekly
- Delhi-Milan: reduced from 5x weekly to 4x weekly
- Delhi-Vienna: reduced from 4x weekly to 3x weekly
- Delhi-Zurich: reduced from 4x weekly to 3x weekly
- Delhi-Rome: reduced from 4x weekly to 3x weekly
Australia
- Delhi-Melbourne: reduced from 7x weekly to 4x weekly
- Delhi-Sydney: reduced from 7x weekly to 4x weekly
Far East, Southeast Asia and SAARC
- Delhi-Shanghai: temporarily suspended through August
- Delhi-Singapore: reduced from 24x weekly to 14x weekly
- Mumbai-Singapore: reduced from 14x weekly to 7x weekly
- Chennai-Singapore: temporarily suspended through August
- Delhi-Bangkok: reduced from 28x weekly to 21x weekly from July
- Mumbai-Bangkok: reduced from 13x weekly to 7x weekly from July
- Delhi-Kuala Lumpur: reduced from 10x weekly to 5x weekly
- Delhi-Ho Chi Minh City: reduced from 7x weekly to 4x weekly in July and August
- Delhi-Hanoi: reduced from 5x weekly to 4x weekly in July and August
- Delhi-Kathmandu: reduced from 42x weekly to 28x weekly in June, and further to 21x weekly in July and August
- Delhi-Dhaka: reduced from 7x weekly to 4x weekly
- Mumbai-Dhaka: temporarily suspended through August
- Mumbai-Colombo: reduced from 7x weekly to 4x weekly
- Delhi-Colombo: reduced from 14x weekly to 12x weekly
- Delhi-Malé: temporarily suspended through August
Lowest point for flights to USA
Air India will operate 31 weekly flights to North America with these changes. For records the airline operated 36 weekly flights to North America in January 2020, the first full month of operations before the impact of COVID started hitting in. In January 2022, when the Tata group took over Air India, there were 39 weekly flights to North America. The Tata group subsequently invested heavily in expanding the network with January 2023 seeing 53 weekly flights, while January 2025 saw 65 weekly departures. Post April, as the Pakistani airspace closed the airline had to readjust the network to operate with a technical stop on most routes, if not all.
Subsequently the airline withdrew services to Washington after the deadly crash of AI 171 and network changes after that. With the recent announcements, the North America flights become less than half of what it was at its peak in the last four years. The airline had pulled out of Nairobi as well as it rejigged the network.
Network Thoughts
Air India has recorded a loss of over INR 20,000 crore last year going by news reports and the crude shock, sliding rupee and traffic drop does not bode well to continue operating these flights if they dont make money. With these changes, Air India will cease to have international operations from Chennai along with suspending Chicago, Male and Shanghai. For a network carrier like Air India, when one long haul flight is culled, the impact is felt on other flights which is what we can see from this rejig of network. The next thing to check would be the deployment of equipment for the network, where I believe the airline will ensure that better product is available on the routes it is operating rather than utilising the legacy aircraft, whereever possible.
With these changes, lack of visibility on the end of conflict and subsequent impact on the macro economic environment, it remains to be seen on how Air India handles the refurbishment of the B77Ws which are now slated to begin next year. Going by the track record thus far, if there are further delays on the refurbishment, and the economic environment remains uncertain, I would believe that the airline will not focus on refurbishment of the B77Ws and instead retire them. The oldest of the aircraft would be two decades old by the time they go for refurbishment.
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