United Airlines suspends two India routes
United Airlines has suspended the two of its four routes between the United States and India which use Russian airspace, in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, but it has kept the other two routes open as they do not cross Russia, the carrier said in a statement.
United’s daily routes directly linking San Francisco, CA with Delhi Int’l and New York Newark with Mumbai Int’l have been halted in the “temporary” move, while its two dailies linking Delhi with both Newark and Chicago O’Hare will continue. All four are 7x weekly routes, the ch-aviation capacities module shows.
“United has decided to temporarily suspend transiting Russian airspace to operate our flights to and from BOM (Mumbai) and DEL (Delhi) India. While some routes are possible to fly, we are unable to operate our full India operation. Our SFO-DEL and EWR-BOM routes will be cancelled for the next few days as we evaluate any available options for those unique routes,” the statement said.
“We do, however, have available routes outside Russia, which allow us to continually operate the ORD-DEL and EWR-DEL routes,” it added. “We may have additional adjustments to our flight schedule for India in the days ahead as the situation develops, but we remain in close communication with our crews in India.”
United was the last major US passenger carrier to withdraw from the airspace following Russia’s war on Ukraine. It had routed other flights around Russia since the February 24 invasion. American Airlines and Delta Air Lines have avoided Russian airspace since February 23, rearranging routes between US cities and destinations in Northeast Asia.
According to a Bloomberg News report, United was paying Russia under USD4,000 to use its airspace for each India flight.
That leaves only Air India (AI, Mumbai Int’l), which still overflies Russia, as the only carrier currently operating nonstop between India and the US – from Delhi to Chicago, San Francisco, Newark, New York JFK, and Washington Dulles; Mumbai to Newark; Bangalore Int’l to San Francisco; and Hyderabad Int’l to Chicago.