Numerous airlines including Air India (AI, Delhi International), United Airlines (UA, Chicago O'Hare), Malindo Air (Kuala Lumpur International), and Air Astana (KC, Astana Nursultan Nazarbayev) have announced changes to their schedules following the full reopening of the Pakistani airspace to overflights.
The Press Trust of India has reported that Air India will relaunch its Delhi International-Amritsar-Birmingham, GB route on August 15. Flights will operate 3x weekly with the same frequency as before the closure in February 2019. It is unclear whether the carrier will at the same time resume the 3x weekly direct services from Delhi to Birmingham, to Madrid Barajas, Kabul, and Najaf, which were also suspended earlier this year.
The carrier's online booking system does not yet reflect the changes. Air India suspended services to Birmingham, Kabul, and Najaf on March 16, more than two weeks after the initial closure of the Pakistani airspace.
According to The Hindu, the Indian flag carrier lost some INR4.9 billion rupees (USD71 million) through the beginning of July due to the, initially, total and then partial closure of the Pakistani airspace for overflights.
United Airlines plans to resume its daily services from New York Newark to Delhi and Mumbai International on September 6, CCO Andrew Nocella said during the quarterly earnings call. The carrier suspended flights to the former Indian gateway in April and to the latter in June. United also plans to launch its third route to India, from San Francisco to Delhi, on December 5.
Malaysia's Malindo Air said in a press statement it will resume its 5x weekly services from Kuala Lumpur International to Lahore International in Pakistan on July 18.
Air Astana said it will increase the frequency of its Almaty International-Delhi flights to 11x weekly in mid-August. The Kazakh flag carrier previously resumed flights to India on June 29, 2019, despite having to fly a longer route doubling the scheduled flight time of around 3 hours.
The Hindu has further reported that Ariana Afghan Airlines (FG, Kabul) was expected to shortly announce the resumption of its services from Kabul (direct, via Kandahar and via Herat) to Delhi.
SpiceJet (SG, Delhi International) has yet to announce the resumption of its route to Kabul.
SriLankan Airlines (UL, Colombo International) resumed its services from Colombo International to Karachi International on June 1, 2019, although the resumption of services to Lahore International is not scheduled before September 2019.
Pakistan sealed off its airspace on Wednesday, February 27, after an Indian Air Force raid on a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) training camp in Balakot, located near the disputed northern Pakistani border with India's Jammu & Kashmir state. The airspace was subsequently gradually reopened but only for north-south flights. It was the reopened fully with immediate effect on July 15.