Indian airlines to avoid Afghan airspace; flight duration to go up by up to 40 minutes

Passengers flying to Europe and Americas may have to fly about up to forty minutes longer, as airlines in India decide to avoid the Afghanistan airspace.

The airspace over Afghanistan has been released to the military and airlines won’t have to use the airspace or use it at their own risk. Indian carriers have decided to not use the airspace.

While Air India’s flights coming from Chicago this morning was diverted and now flying in with a refuel halt at an airport in the Middle East, Vistara will also not use the airspace.


“The impact would not be as harsh as the closure of Pakistani airspace had. It would mean max extra 40 minutes for flights. Flights can fly over Pakistan and then enter the Iranian airspace totally avoiding the Afghanistan airspace,” said a senior commander, who has flown over the area several times.

While this may mean extra fuel burn for aircraft, there would not be a requirement of an extra crew, the person quoted above said.
Another person added many older Boeing 777 did not fly over Afghanistan since it’s on a higher altitude.

Explaining the details, he added that various older planes had only about 14 minutes of oxygen for passengers in the oxygen masks that deploy in case of an emergency.

“Since flying over Afghanistan would mean flying over higher altitude, these older planes avoided the airspace, anyway,” he added.

The Taliban has taken over power in Afghanistan, which was being run as a democratic republic with the support from the US forces posted in the country.

With the US forces leaving, the country was taken over by the terrorist organisation that has announced to rule the country by Sharia laws.

The Afghanistan airport has also been shut for civilian aircraft and only military aircraft are allowed to operate for now. Air India, which was to operate evacuation flights to and from Kabul, will now not operate any flights to the country.