Russia-Ukraine Ceasefire Is Bad News For Air India. Here's Why

(MENAFN- Live Mint) The possibility of a ceasefire on the Russia-Ukraine front after more than three years of war has hit the headlines. While Ukraine has talked about the possibility, the ball now rests with Russia where the United States will try to negotiate and come to a ceasefire before ending the war.

Like in most cases, the give and take will extend beyond the territory and one of the major points for discussions will be the airspace availability. When the war started, the Western world closed its airspace for Russian carriers and its own airlines started avoiding Russian airspace. This meant that carriers like Finnair were celebrating flights over the North Pole with certificates meted out to its passengers; but many had to simply pull out flights or not resume them post-pandemic. The war started even as the world was grappling with the pandemic and going through multiple waves of it.

The impact was for European carriers flying to China and South East Asia along with American carriers flying to India among other places. The shortest great circle distance flight between India and the United States overflies Russia. However, the airspace usage was reciprocal. The American carriers would not overfly Russia, but Indian carriers would and that meant it was advantage Air India all along.

Getting into the pandemic, three American carriers operated non-stop to India. This included Delta Air Lines to Mumbai and American Airlines to Delhi with a flight each, while United operated a daily flight each to Delhi and Mumbai from Newark in addition to the San Francisco-Delhi flight. As things stand today, Delta Air Lines does not operate to India while American Airlines has maintained its presence, even as some of its flights had to halt for a technical refuelling stop due to headwinds. United also continued with its presence in India but operating only a third of the flights it operated pre-pandemic and pre-war.

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