Air India will slash international flights operated on widebody aircraft by 15% as enhanced one-time safety checks expand to its fleet of Boeing 777 aircraft, the embattled carrier announced on Wednesday.
The decision came nearly a week after a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed shortly after takeoff in Ahmedabad, tragically claiming the lives of 241 of the 242 people onboard and dozens more on the ground.
In the aftermath of the June 12 accident, regulators ordered Air India to conduct engineering safety checks on its Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet. So far, 26 out of 33 Boeing Dreamliners in the Air India fleet have been inspected, and the remainder will be completed in the next few days.
In a statement, Air India said that the one-time checks had not uncovered anything of concern, giving the airline “reassurance in the safety measures and procedures that we follow.
However, the carrier has decided to expand the enhanced engineering checks to its Boeing 777 fleet as a “precaution.”
Coupled with airspace restrictions as a result of the developing security situation in the Middle East, Air India said it would slash its long-haul schedules operated by widebody aircraft return some stability to its operation.
Air India has already been forced to cancel 83 long-haul flights over the last six days, but the schedule reduction should bring some certainty to passengers that their flight isn’t going to be grounded at the last minute.
The 15% cutback is expected to last through the middle of July at the earliest.
“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,” the airline said in a statement.
“It is done to restore operational stability, and to minimise last-minute inconvenience to passengers.”
Earlier on Wednesday, an Air India spokesperson said that the carrier was working with a UK-based crisis management company to repatriate the remains of those killed in the accident to the United Kingdom and other countries around the world.
52 British citizens were killed in the accident, and investigators are working as quickly as possible to get to the bottom of what caused the first-ever fatal crash of a 787 Dreamliner.
