While the Indian Air Force announced Friday that all temporary restrictions imposed on Indian airspace after the Balakot air strikes have been removed, it is unlikely to benefit any commercial airlines unless Pakistan reciprocates and opens its airspace too.
Among Indian airlines, the international operations of AirIndia and IndiGo have been affected by the closure of Pakistan airspace sinceFebruary 27.
IndiGo, India’s largest airline by share in domesticpassenger market, has been unable to start direct flights from Delhi toIstanbul.
While the low-cost carrier started the Delhi-Istanbul flightin March this year, the flight has to take the longer route every time throughArabian Sea and take a stop at either Doha in Qatar or Ahmedabad in Gujarat forrefuelling.
Similarly, full-service carrier Air India is unable to flynon-stop flights from Delhi to the US since the closure of Pakistani airspace.
The Delhi-US flights of the national carrier have to stop atSharjah for refuelling and have to operate with two sets of pilots so as to notviolate the time restriction rules of Indian aviation regulator DGCA.
As a result of the ban, foreign carriers using Indianairspace have also been forced to take costly detours because they cannot flyover Pakistan.
The closure mainly affects flights from Europe to SoutheastAsia. The flights from Europe and the US flying in and out of New Delhi havebeen the worst hit.
Since Pakistan’s airspace closure, the airfare on manyroutes have gone up significantly, including Delhi-Kabul, Delhi-Moscow,Delhi-Tehran and Delhi-Astana.