Air India will look at reducing frequencies or suspending services on certain routes as some of the flights are either not profitable as before or loss-making due to the airspace constraints, according to its CEO Campbell Wilson.
At a town hall meeting for the staff on Friday, the airline announced certain cost-saving measures, including deferred payment of annual increments and asked the employees to cut down on discretionary spending.
"We will continue to do the things that improve revenues and continue to do things to improve costs," Wilson, the CEO and MD of the airline, said.
1 May 2026
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Air India, which currently has around 190 planes in its fleet, operated about 8,000 flights per week and carried nearly 62 million people in the financial year ended March 31, 2026.
With the airspace constraints, Wilson said that some of the routes the airline used to operate are not as profitable or indeed are now loss-making, and those need to be pulled back.
"Sometimes, it'll be pulling back frequency, sometimes it might be suspending routes entirely. We will go back when circumstances change, but we need to be agile to change our network," he told the staff, according to a source.
The closure of Pakistan airspace, as well as the higher jet fuel prices due to the West Asia conflict, have pushed up the operational costs for the loss-making Air India, which is also in the midst of implementing an ambitious transformation plan.
On May 1, Wilson told staff that the airspace and jet fuel price situation remains extremely challenging.
"... massive rise in jet fuel prices which, together with airspace closures and longer flying routes, has caused many of our international flights to become unprofitable to operate," he had said in a message.
While cuts in international flights happened in April and is continuing in May, Wilson had also said the situation leaves the airline with no choice "but to further trim schedules for June and July".
