NEW DELHI: Air India is reducing its international service using widebody planes by 15% as the nation’s flag carrier grapples with the fallout from a fatal Boeing Co. 787 crash last week and an Israel-Iran clash in the Middle East.
The cuts will be rolled out through June 20 and will continue until at least mid-July, the carrier said in a press release on Wednesday. The airline also said it would undertake one-time safety inspections across its Boeing 777 fleet as "a matter of added precaution.”
In its statement, Air India cited geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, night curfew in the airspaces of countries in Europe and East Asia and the ongoing enhanced safety inspections of its Boeing-built 787 fleet after Thursday’s crash.
Safety checks ordered by the country’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation have been completed on 26 of the 33 Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets operated by Air India, clearing those planes to fly, the airline said. Inspections of the remaining planes will be completed in the coming days, it added.
"The curtailments are a painful measure to take, but are necessary following a devastating event which we are still working through and an unusual combination of external events,” Air India said.
Investigators are still trying to determine why Air India flight AI171 struggled to gain altitude after takeoff from the western Indian city of Ahmedabad before plunging into a densely populated neighbourhood seconds later, killing all but one of the 242 passengers and crew, as well as dozens more on the ground.
The incident ranks as the worst disaster in civil aviation in more than a decade.
Search crews sifting through the crash site have pulled the second flight data recorder from the rubble, Bloomberg has reported. The first device was found the day after the crash.
Air India Chairman N Chandrasekaran told a local TV channel that AI-171 had a clean flight record before the crash.
"There are speculations about human error, speculations about airlines, speculations about engines, maintenance, all kinds,” he said.
"This particular aircraft, this specific tail, AI-171 has a clean history.”
"Both engine histories are clean. Both pilots were exceptional,” he added.
The plane’s right engine had been installed in March 2025, he said. The left engine was last serviced in 2023 and due for its next maintenance check in December 2025, he added.
Chandrasekaran said a preliminary report is expected from crash investigators in 30 days. He also acknowledged that the lack of information about the factors that may have led to the crash has stoked frustration and rumours.
"We’ve got to do a better job at communication,” he said, adding that the carrier installed a strategic communications team in the last three days. - Bloomberg
