Air India to partially resume services suspended after crash from Aug 1
Some frequencies to be restored from Aug 1, with full restoration planned from Oct 1; airline to operate 3 flights a week between Ahmedabad and Heathrow
Mumbai, Jul 15 (PTI) Air India on Monday said it will operate flight services between Ahmedabad and London Heathrow from August 1, replacing the existing Ahmedabad-Gatwick route, and announced a partial resumption of services on domestic and international routes which it had suspended last month after the fatal Boeing 787-8 plane crash.
At the same time, the suspension of services on Amritsar-London (Gatwick), Goa (Mopa)-London (Gatwick), Bengaluru-Singapore and Pune-Singapore would continue till September 30, the airline said.
The Tata Group airline had last month decided to observe a "Safety Pause" in the aftermath of the June 12 Boeing 787-8 plane crash that killed 260 people.
The partial resumption will see restoration of some frequencies from August 1, relative to July, with full restoration planned from October 1, Air India said.
On June 12, the London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner began to lose thrust within seconds of taking off from the Ahmedabad Airport and ploughed into a medical college hostel, killing all but one of the 242 onboard and another 19 on the ground in the deadliest aviation accident in a decade.
The airline said that the pause enabled it to perform additional precautionary checks on its Boeing 787 aircraft as well as accommodate longer flying times arising from airspace closures over Pakistan and the Middle East.
From August 1 to September 30, Air India will operate flights three times a week between Ahmedabad and London (Heathrow), replacing currently operating 5x weekly flights between Ahmedabad and London (Gatwick), the Tata Group-owned airline said.
Besides, the two-weekly services that were curtailed on the Delhi-London (Heathrow) are being reinstated from July 16, with all 24x weekly flights operating from July 16 onwards while the Services on the Delhi-Zurich route will be increased to 5x weekly, effective August 1 from four weekly services at present.
Air India also said that it will reinstate two weekly services on the Delhi-Tokyo (Haneda) route, which were earlier curtailed, with all 7x weekly flights operating from August 1 onwards, while the two weekly services which were reduced on the Delhi-Seoul (Incheon) route will be reinstated from September 1, which will see all 5x weekly flights in operations.
As the schedule reductions taken as part of the Safety Pause had been implemented until 31 July and the restoration to full operation is being phased, some services initially planned to operate between August 1 and 30 September will be removed from the schedule, the airline said.
Air India is proactively contacting affected passengers to offer re-booking on alternative flights or a full refund, as per their preference. Air India apologised for the inconvenience, it said.
With the partial restoration, Air India operates more than 525 international flights per week on 63 short, long and ultra-long-haul routes, Air India said. PTI