india has taken some strict steps regarding the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, and pakistan has also retaliated. One of these is pakistan closing its airspace for indian airlines. This means that indian planes will not be able to fly over pakistan to other countries.
Airplanes have to resort to alternate routes
However, due to this decision of pakistan, indian airlines have to bear an additional cost of about 77 crores rupees per week to operate their flights. Due to the closure of Pakistan's airspace, planes have to resort to alternate routes to travel to many countries. This is leading to more expenditure on fuel and also taking more time. Based on the number of international flights from North india and the increased time limit, news agency PTI said that the operational cost could be more than 307 crore rupees per month.
So many extra hours are being taken in the journey
PTI quoted a senior airline executive in its report saying, international flights to North America are now taking an additional 1.5 hours to reach. In such a situation, the cost of each flight can increase by up to Rs 29 lakh due to unscheduled technical halts. This includes fuel, landing and parking charges.
European routes are also taking an additional 1.5 hours, which can increase the cost of up to Rs 22.5 lakh per flight. While flights to the Middle east are getting delayed by up to 45 minutes, which is leading to an additional operational cost of about Rs 5 lakh per flight.
More than 6000 international flights
Data from aviation analytics firm Cirium shows that indian airlines operate more than 6,000 international flights on a monthly basis. Of these, about 800 weekly flights originate from north indian cities like delhi and go to North America, europe, the UK and the Middle East.
Of these, about 1,900 flights a month are operated using narrow-body aircraft (A320s, A321s, B737s) to the Middle East. According to PTI estimates, this alone is incurring an extra cost of Rs 90 crore every month. Long-haul travel using wide-body aircraft to europe and North America could cost the remaining Rs 217 crore.
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