In 2020, when the world closed down, aviation and hospitality were some of the biggestsectors to suffer. Aviation got a bit of a restart in India in May 2020, with the Government of India authorising flights to ferry displaced Indians from India to foreign stations and similarly, bring back those who wanted to come back to India under the Vande Bharat mission. So scarce were these flights that travellers were paying double or even more than the usual fares just to secure a seat to get home.
Eventually, as we learnt more about the SARS-COv2 virus and how it transmits, the Government of India permitted other Indian carriers besides Air India to join the mission. Every month, however, the opening up of scheduled international aviation was postponed.
Vande Bharat Mission flights allowed to operate
This was not a happy situation for India to be in. Aviation, ultimately, is a global business. Airlines around the globe work on the back of an intricate network of requirements to service destinations, and every airline was hungry for any scrape of business they could get. However, India was only permitting Indian carriers to operate these Vande Bharat Mission flights.
Eventually, the Vande Bharat Mission evolved into the Air Bubble Agreements. India decided that it would keep the Air Services Agreements (ASAs) with various countries on hold for a bit longer, and governments could sign new Air Bubble Agreements with India, whereby new conditions were set, specifically trading rights of Indian passport holders to transit major international airports with opening up the opportunity to fly between India and their country.
Bilaterals were kept in abeyance for over two years, while the rest of the world opened up again, much to the chagrin of some airlines whose business models are based on connecting traffic.
Aviation to reopen from March 27
India has finally decided to reopen aviation effective March 27, 2022, to all airlines around the globe. When this happens, it means the air bubbles will cease to exist, and you will be able to freely transit via Dubai or Qatar to fly to the United States of America, if you so wish.
Fuel prices have shot up
This announcement comes in the wake of new world order. Crude oil prices shot up to over $130 last week and is currently prices at $110. Air Turbine Fuel (ATF) is at record highs in India, with prices at levels last seen in August 2008. Aviation’s biggest cost head is at 35-40 percent and fuel prices directly dictate profitable growth of any airline. Non-stop long haul flying costs a lot more compared to one-stop flights since the aircraft will have to carry an extremely high amount of fuel for non-stop flights.
Russian aggression adds to aviation woes
There has been constant news flow about the international sanctions on Russia and countersanctions by Russia, which is affecting aviation.
For instance, European carriers have been banned from using Russian airspace for overflight. This means that Finnair for instance, is now having to fly 1.15 hours more approximately every day to skirt Russian airspace as it completes the flight between Helsinki and Delhi. And while United, the American carrier has not been banned from Russian airspace yet, it has in its own threat assessment, started to avoid Russian airspace. As a consequence, effective March 1, 2022, the airline has been cancelling non-stop flights between Newark and Mumbai and San Francisco and Delhi every day. In a world with already scarce connectivity between India and the US, this has driven up the prices of these flights even more.
War risk Insurance
Air India continues to fly over Russia for now to service its US-bound flights but if global insurers stop insurance for incidents that might occur while flying over Russia, it might force them to change routes as well. Air India and Emirates are some of the carriers who continue to use Russian airspace even now.
COVID is not out of the woods yet
While countries are falling over each other to open up flights and tourism, and understandably so, the world has still not exited the pandemic phase of COVID-19 yet. As I write this, western Europe is seeing a resurgence of breakthrough infections, and China is beginning to put some of its cities under local lockdowns again.
While the current Omicron variant is not supposed to be as lethal as the earlier ones and might be our ticket to end this pandemic, it could also go the other way if adequate caution is not exercised.
Given the complex world order that aviation in India is opening up to, the next few months will be interesting for airlines and passengers to navigate through new complexities. One thing is for sure, travel will never be the same again.
Let us hope that nothing becomes too serious to call for a shutdown of flights again.
In the meantime, get ready to be able to fly for a weekend to Thailand, or pick up your favourite wine before catching a connection from Dubai, again.
(Ajay Awtaney writes about Indian Aviation on livefromalounge.com and tweets from @LiveFromALounge)
