Air India on Wednesday (May 13, 2026) announced sweeping international schedule cuts between June and August, including a nearly 40% reduction in North America operations and significant cuts across SAARC and Southeast Asia. This amounts to an overall reduction of about 27% in the airline’s international network capacity, sources said.
The net reduction including cutting down on 145 weekly flights across North America, Europe, South East Asia, SAARC and Far East between June and August 2026.
While some flight cuts had begun gradually from March, this marks the first time Air India has formally announced a rationalisation of its network in response to the conflict. Although the airline introduced a fuel surcharge to offset rising costs, its CEO Campbell Wilson has repeatedly cautioned that increasing fares beyond a point could hurt demand.
North America, Air India’s most critical international market, will see weekly flights reduced from 51 to 33, resulting in a 39% cut.
Services on routes such as Delhi-Chicago, Delhi-Newark and Mumbai-New York are being temporarily suspended, although the airline has added four extra Mumbai-Newark flights, taking that route to seven weekly services.
Since tensions escalated in West Asia on February 28, Air India has been grappling with prolonged detours adding five to six hours to flight times due to regional airspace restrictions and the continued closure of Pakistani airspace, compounded by rising aviation turbine fuel costs for which, unlike domestic operations where the government intervened to soften the impact, international flights have received no relief.
In Europe, schedule changes have been made on routes to Paris, Copenhagen, Milan, Vienna, Zurich and Rome, while services to London, Manchester and Amsterdam remain unaffected. Among the affected European destinations, nearly 34% of flights have been withdrawn.
Extending the impact of the West Asia conflict far beyond westward routes, Southeast Asia, SAARC, and Far East routes have seen the steepest reductions as rising fuel costs make it harder for airlines to absorb expenses.
A total of 82 weekly or 57% of flights across destinations such as Kathmandu, Dhaka, Colombo, Bangkok, Shanghai, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City have been removed. Singapore too has seen drastic cuts, with as many as 21 flights per week withdrawn from Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.
Kathmandu has seen one of the sharpest reductions, with weekly flights halved from 42 to 21.
Outside the Gulf, the U.S., Thailand, Singapore, the UK and Malaysia rank among the most popular international destinations for Indian travellers. Delhi–Newark
In addition to the three U.S. routes temporarily suspended, four more routes have also been shut for now, which include Delhi–Shanghai, Chennai–Singapore, Mumbai–Dhaka, Delhi–Malé
Further away to Australia, Delhi-Melbourne and Delhi-Sydney have reduced from seven flights a week to four flights per week.
Group airline, low-cost Air India Express, has also seen a ground of 30% of its fleet since the beginning of the U.S.-Israel-Iran war as its Gulf-focused network took a hit due to the airspace restrictions.
Published – May 13, 2026 04:31 pm IST
