Pakistan Airspace Closure May Cost Indian Airlines ₹307 Crore Monthly

Pakistan Airspace Closure: Such international flights from cities in northern India by Indian airlines are likely to incur additional weekly expenses of ₹77 crores due to the closure of airspace by Pakistan in the wake of the terror attack in Pahalgam, India.

The airspace restrictions may increase fuel consumption and lead to longer flights. According to an analysis by PTI, the operational costs are likely to go up by around ₹307 crore in a month.

With Pahalgam terror attack pouring fresh tensions between India and Pakistan, on Thursday Pakistan announced its decision to deny Indian carriers the use of its airspace.

IndiGo announced on April 25 that it will have to slightly adjust its schedule in a few cases for about 50 of its international routes that will require longer sectors.

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"With the same restrictions and limited rerouting options, unfortunately, Almaty and Tashkent are outside the operational range of IndiGo's current fleet," it had said in a statement.

Flights towards Almaty are canceled starting from April 27th until at least May 7th, and for flights to Tashkent, cancellations would take effect from April 28th until May 7th.

So far, no announcements have been made by Air India, Air India Express, SpiceJet, or Akasa Air regarding cancellation of any flights due to the airspace restrictions.

While Air India operates widebodies A350s, B777s, and B787s, IndiGo operates B787 and B777s taken on lease. The remaining carriers -- Air India Express, SpiceJet, and Akasa Air -- operate narrow-body planes such as A320s, A321s, and B737s.

An alternative flight path that results from the closure of Pakistan airspace for Indian airlines adds up to 1.5 hours flying time in the case of some international flights from Delhi and other northern parts of India.

It will take an additional 1.5 hours for a North America flight from India that takes 16 hours. "This will be around 1.5 hours," an official from PTI said.

According to the official, approximately 29 lakhs would be the cost for that 1.5 additional hours. This figure contains landing and parking charges based on a technical stop in an airport along the way.

Similar to the additional time for a 9-hour flight towards Europe, it would be nearly 1 hour and 50 minutes extra. That would cost approximately around ₹22.5 lakh to the carrier running the flight.

To and from the Middle East, the additional time will be approximately 45 minutes, thus costing around ₹5 lakh.

In April, more than 6,000 one-way flights will take Indian carriers to various international destinations, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.

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An analysis from the Cirium data has also reported that Indian airlines operate more than 800 weekly flights to and from cities in the northern region of India to overseas destinations such as the US, UK, Europe, and the Middle East.

All together, both ways, there are a little above 3,100 flights in a month, and counting, that comes to an average of nearly 800 flights per week.

Out of these monthly flights, around 1900 are operated on narrow body and some wide body planes toward the Middle East; taking into account the extra cost of ₹5 lakh per flight for the additional duration of 45 minutes, this sums up to approximately ₹90 crores.

European and North American areas total nearly 1,200 in two-way flights. Additional flying time of 1.5 hours amounts to approximately ₹29 lakh for North American services and ₹22 lakh for European flights; thus, the combined expense is nearly ₹306 million per month.

With all these assumptions, the total extra monthly cost of flying will be about ₹307 crore and about ₹77 crore every week. Very rough estimates.

Beyond increased fuel consumption, increased flight time further imposes limits on payload and aircraft availability, along with challenges for airlines concerning crew flying duty time limitations.

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