Air India Flights From India To US Reduced By 50%: 4 Reasons Why This Happened

Air India has made amends to its original flight schedule of operating around 180 flights till August 31 to the US, by dropping the scheduled flights by over 50%.

Read on to find out more..

Air India’s Revised New Schedule!

Air India’s daily flights between India and the US have been stopped.  The Indian airline is shifting to thrice-weekly services on all US routes. 

The reason for reduced flights can be cited to be the drop in the demand or pressure from the US government to reduce flights.

The American airline, United, is now operating flights from Delhi to Newark on a daily basis and to San Francisco thrice-weekly.

The revised Air India schedule between 25th-26th July and August 31st is-

• AI 103 – Delhi to Washington D.C. (Wednesday/Friday/Sunday)
• AI 191 – Mumbai to Newark (Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday)
• AI 101 – Delhi to New York JFK (Wednesday/Friday/Sunday)
• AI 127 – Delhi to Chicago (Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday)
• AI 173 – Delhi to San Francisco (Wednesday/Friday/Sunday)

Click here to find out Air India’s phase 4 schedule to the US and Europe and the domestic schedule till July end.

Click here to find out Air India’s phase 5 schedule to the US and Europe for August, 2020.

Due to the unprecedented COVID-19 times, the flights schedules are dynamic in nature and are subjected to change.

Why Did Air India Drop the Flights By Over 50%?

Air India’s original schedule was released soon after an ‘air bubble’ was established with the US, allowing for American carriers to land in India.

While no official statement has been released by the airline, here are a few probable reasons behind this-

1. Drop in demand- this means that people have returned to India in the previous phases of Vande Bharat mission.
2. Competition from the United Airlines on the New York and San Francisco routes.
3. The thrice per week flights can satiate the limited demand for air travel on the India-US route.
4. Objections from the US government over Air India’s schedule. Proio to the air bubble, United States Department of Transportation (DoT) had criticised Air India’s flights, citing Air India’s monopoly over the market. Currently, United’s schedule remains limited to the end of the month.The DoT could also be slowing down flights from India due to COVID-19 fears as India becomes the third country with the most confirmed cases in the world, behind Brazil and the US. The US govt might not want to increase the risk of imported cases.

Please note that no airline company, Indian government or the DoT has given any official reason.