United Airlines, on March 7, announced that it has indefinitely suspended two flights to India after halting flights that flew over Russia.
Last week, the Chicago-based airline said it had stopped service between San Francisco and Delhi and between Newark, New Jersey, and Mumbai. The airline further said it plans to continue flying to Delhi from Chicago and Newark.
“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,” said a statement.
“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.”
Last week, the Biden administration joined the European Union and Canada, banning Russian airlines from US airspace. The ban is applicable for passenger, cargo flights, scheduled and charter flights “effectively closing US air space to all Russian commercial air carriers and other Russian civil aircraft,” the Transportation Department said.
However, United Airlines on March 1 said it had temporarily suspended flying over Russian airspace, joining other major US carriers. Major US carriers have taken such a move after Russian troops entered a war with Ukraine.
United’s operated Delhi-to-San Francisco and Mumbai-to-Newark flights on March 2. United’s last US departing legs of those two flights to India was February 28.
