Pakistan’s decision to close its airspace to Indian-based airlines is expected to deal a financial as well as operational blow to the sector.
The development assumes significance as Pakistan’s airspace is a vital corridor for Indian airlines, especially for westbound flights from northern cities like Delhi to Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and even to the United States.
Speaking to businessline, industry insiders have estimated a rise in airfares and losses for India-based airlines.
“Its closure forces carriers to take longer alternate routes, increasing flight times and fuel costs—particularly impacting long-haul routes to the West,” Jagannarayan Padmanabhan, Senior Director, Crisil Market Intelligence, told businessline.
“Some US-bound flights may see additional fuel stops and extended travel times, pushing up operational expenses considerably.”
According to aviation industry veteran Manoj Chacko, other routes that do not depend on Pakistan’s airspace can be used by India-based airlines for international journeys.
“Flight dispatchers need to plan smartly,” said Chacko, who also runs regional airline Fly91 as its MD and CEO, told businessline.
“While flights to the Middle East, Europe, and the US may not be a big challenge, flights to the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries would be a challenge,” he added.
Pointing out that Air India and IndiGo will be most affected by the closure of Pakistan’s airspace, Mark D. Martin, CEO of Martin Consulting, said, “By conservative estimates, we expect ticket prices to rise by a minimum of 35 per cent to destinations in the Middle East and by over 40 per cent to destinations in Europe in addition to higher carbon emissions and fuel burn.”
“It is always the airline business that gets impacted when India and Pakistan spar and sabre rattle. This situation will have an earning impact on airline financials.”
On its part, Air India said that some of its flights to or from North America, the UK, Europe, and the Middle East will take an alternative extended route.
“Air India regrets the inconvenience caused to our passengers due to this unforeseen airspace closure that is outside our control,” Air India said on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
Meanwhile, IndiGo said that a few of its international flights have been impacted.
“In light of airspace closure by Pakistan for Indian airlines, schedules of a few of our international flights are impacted,” IndiGo said on X.
“We understand this may cause inconvenience to our customers, which our teams are working hard to minimise as much as possible.”
However, the situation is not unprecedented, as airlines had a similar experience in the aftermath of the Balakot air strikes by the Indian Air Force in 2019.
At that time, flights to the Gulf, Europe, and the US were either clubbed, cancelled, or rerouted.
The longer flight durations, higher fuel burn, and restricted capacity in 2019 had led to massive losses for the airline industry.
Especially hard-hit were large international fleet operators such as Air India, which was government-owned at the time and lost nearly ₹6 crore a day.
Air India had to club together several US- and Europe-bound flights. The Delhi-Washington flight had a stopover at Mumbai.
Furthermore, many flights at that time were cancelled, such as Delhi-Najaf in southern Iraq, Delhi-Madrid, Delhi-Birmingham, and Delhi-Amritsar-Birmingham.
As per industry insiders, the financial blow might be even more “deadly this time around” with expanded international operations of India-based airlines to the Gulf, Europe, the US, and the CIS countries.
Besides, Indian carriers’ plans to further expand their international footprint and the centre’s plans to make Delhi Airport an international hub with major I-to-I (international-to-international) operations might be in jeopardy.
However, airline representatives, along with MoCA (Ministry of Civil Aviation) officials, were confident that the lessons learned from the 2019 episode will keep the industry in “good stead.”
In 2019, flights from North India to the US and Europe were diverted over Mumbai and then northwards over the Arabian Sea through the United Arab Emirates (UAE) airspace.
Apart from alternate routes, technical stops at Sharjah in the UAE and Vienna in Austria were created for operations from India.
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Published on April 24, 2025