Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: With airspace restrictions to the west of India increasing at a furious pace in the last 11 months, Air India is finally sending reinforcement pilots for its long haul backbone fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners that are deployed on ever-lengthening Europe and UK routes. The conversion of about 28 to 30 pilots of Boeing 777s to the Dreamliner is nearly complete and they will start on the B787s next month. Conversion training for another batch of about 15 narrow body pilots to the B787 will begin from March 23.This was conveyed to the fatigued-by-now wide body pilots of AI on Saturday by the airline management. The airline is going to convert more narrow body pilots to the B787 and Airbus A350 as the more of the latter type are expected to join the fleet later this year. The B777s’ numbers in AI fleet is falling as the legacy planes are being sent for retrofitting.
In the most recent instance, Pakistan airspace for Indian carriers was closed on April 23, 2025. Since then Indian carriers’ flights to and from the west have been taking longer routes — going over Arabian Sea seeing clear of Karachi airspace and then heading to their destinations. These routes got even longer when Iran had to be avoided. The Israel-Iran war has further increased the no-fly areas and this keeps increasing, pushing airlines more to the south of Saudi.“We have been flying longer for almost a year now. The airline seeks and gets dispensation from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) from pilot flight duty time limitation (FDTL) rules, allowing it to now operate longer flights of upto 11.5 hours with just two pilots. We are completely fatigued now as the buildup has been happening for a year and instead of getting any relief, it keeps getting worse with more punishing FDTL dispensations. This is not good for flight safety,” said numerous pilots.Both the airline and the DGCA say they are aware of the issue but are forced to on FDTL issue for the sake of keeping connectivity intact. “We are seeking numbers from AI on how they are increasing pilot availability for B787s. They have to give us regular updates on actual numbers apart from just plans and projections. In fact, any FDTL dispensation is now considered only if an airline gives concrete numbers to improve pilot availability,” said officials. The DGCA toyed with the idea of having AI’s B787 Australia flights with two pilots, instead of three, to increase availability of the Maharaja’s west flights on the Dreamliners. However, the Australia flight numbers were such that the shift wold not have provided any real relief.
