Indian carriers issued detailed operational bulletins on Sunday, 8 March, outlining which services will run, which remain cancelled and which have been converted into ad-hoc repatriation sectors.
Air India and Air India Express are maintaining their scheduled Muscat and Jeddah rotations while mounting 15 extra “evac” flights to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah. IndiGo announced that it will resume two Europe routes—Manchester and Amsterdam—to reposition aircraft and crews, even as 144 Middle-East flights stay cancelled. SpiceJet is deploying a Boeing 737 sub-fleet on one-directional relief runs from Dubai and Fujairah to Delhi, Mumbai and Pune.
The Economic Times bulletin, updated at 09:18 IST, also lists blanket suspensions: Air India Express has cancelled Bahrain, Dammam, Doha, Kuwait and Riyadh services until 13 March; Air India’s suspensions on Dammam, Doha and Riyadh run to 10 March. Travellers booked on the affected sectors can re-book without penalty or claim full refunds.
![Airlines publish rolling ‘Flight Status – 8 March’ as West Asia disruption enters Week 2]()
Corporate mobility teams are being advised to: 1) insist that employees download airline apps with push notifications; 2) maintain duplicate PNRs on at least two carriers; 3) check whether the employee’s travel insurance covers “war risk” rerouting surcharges that are now routinely applied over Central Asian detours.
With itineraries changing by the hour, many passengers may also need to adjust or obtain fresh travel documents for new transit points. VisaHQ’s India portal (https://www.visahq.com/india/) can fast-track e-visas, extensions and other consular paperwork—often in as little as one business day—and its dashboard lets corporate travel managers monitor multiple applications simultaneously, ensuring documentation keeps pace with sudden flight rerouting.
For the wider travel ecosystem, the ad hocism is creating ripple effects. Hotels near major Indian gateways are reporting 95 % occupancy as passengers forced to ‘fly-tomorrow’ wait out cancellations. Freight forwarders, meanwhile, say that cargo capacity on the Muscat–India corridor is down by one-third because passenger jets are being reassigned to relief missions.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation said it is monitoring seat supply daily and may impose a temporary “minimum service obligation” on airlines, similar to the pandemic rules, if commercial considerations begin to override the repatriation objective.
Air India and Air India Express are maintaining their scheduled Muscat and Jeddah rotations while mounting 15 extra “evac” flights to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah. IndiGo announced that it will resume two Europe routes—Manchester and Amsterdam—to reposition aircraft and crews, even as 144 Middle-East flights stay cancelled. SpiceJet is deploying a Boeing 737 sub-fleet on one-directional relief runs from Dubai and Fujairah to Delhi, Mumbai and Pune.
The Economic Times bulletin, updated at 09:18 IST, also lists blanket suspensions: Air India Express has cancelled Bahrain, Dammam, Doha, Kuwait and Riyadh services until 13 March; Air India’s suspensions on Dammam, Doha and Riyadh run to 10 March. Travellers booked on the affected sectors can re-book without penalty or claim full refunds.
Corporate mobility teams are being advised to: 1) insist that employees download airline apps with push notifications; 2) maintain duplicate PNRs on at least two carriers; 3) check whether the employee’s travel insurance covers “war risk” rerouting surcharges that are now routinely applied over Central Asian detours.
With itineraries changing by the hour, many passengers may also need to adjust or obtain fresh travel documents for new transit points. VisaHQ’s India portal (https://www.visahq.com/india/) can fast-track e-visas, extensions and other consular paperwork—often in as little as one business day—and its dashboard lets corporate travel managers monitor multiple applications simultaneously, ensuring documentation keeps pace with sudden flight rerouting.
For the wider travel ecosystem, the ad hocism is creating ripple effects. Hotels near major Indian gateways are reporting 95 % occupancy as passengers forced to ‘fly-tomorrow’ wait out cancellations. Freight forwarders, meanwhile, say that cargo capacity on the Muscat–India corridor is down by one-third because passenger jets are being reassigned to relief missions.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation said it is monitoring seat supply daily and may impose a temporary “minimum service obligation” on airlines, similar to the pandemic rules, if commercial considerations begin to override the repatriation objective.
