Air India has announced that it will stop flights to at least 5 European destinations due to of a drop in passenger demand for these destinations. The national carrier is citing that these routes are no longer financially viable because of the effects of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. On the chopping block are the cities of Madrid, Milan, Copenhagen, Vienna, and Stockholm with immediate effect.
In an internal statement made by the Commercial Division of Air India, it reads: “In view of the COVID situation, it has been approved by competent authority to close down following stations and become offline.” The move will effectively cease the airline’s operations to these destinations as and when normal international flight services commence.
As per an internal communication between the airline’s HQ and station managers, instructions have been given to close down stations and relocate the international booking offices (IBOs). “The current IBOs (international booking offices) are to be recalled to India, and the station will be handed over to GSA (general sales agent) after completion of formality of closure,” the note went on to add. Passengers who had booked travel on Air India to Madrid, Milan, Copenhagen, Vienna, and Stockholm should check with the national carrier regarding refunds.
At present, there are no Air India flights under ‘Vande Bharat Mission’ to these destinations and regular scheduled flights are also not operating currently. The national carrier is currently engaged in the fifth phase of the Mission, operating close to 700 flights between India and at least 53 countries during this phase. Meanwhile, it has increased frequencies of flights to London in this phase. It now has flights from India to London on all seven days of week- Tue, Thu, Fri & Sun from Delhi; Mon, Wed & Sat from Mumbai and every Thu from Bengaluru. Besides, Air India is also flying to Paris and Frankfurt in Europe. India has air bubble agreement with UK, France and Germany.
The IATA (International Air Transport Association) in its forecast in July had stated that global passenger traffic (revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) will not return to pre-Covid-19 levels until 2024, a year later than previously projected. In addition, the IATA had said that for 2020, global passenger numbers are expected to decline by 55 percent compared to 2019. This was a revised forecast from the one in April when IATA had predicted that the global passenger numbers could decline by 46 percent this year.
Air India is already under financial stress and its hopes for revival through increased operations in a post-covid scenario look very bleak.