Indo-Pak tension impact: 2 flights from North America make re-fuelling pitstops at Kol airport
Times of India | 15 June 2025
12 Kolkata: Two Air India flights—one from San Francisco to Mumbai and the other from Vancouver to Delhi—are making a refuelling pit stop at the Kolkata airport as the aircraft have to take a rerout amid the ban on Indian flights in the Pakistani airspace."The San Francisco-Mumbai flight stops in Kolkata for refuelling in the early hours, while the Vancouver-Delhi flight arrives in the evening to refuel after the long-haul flight across the Atlantic Ocean," a Kolkata airport official told TOI.The rerouting of the international flights came into focus after several other AI flights to the West were rerouted on Friday following the closure of the Iranian airspace due to Israeli airstrikes. Altogether, 18 Indian flights were diverted or delayed.On Saturday, AI 180 from San Francisco landed at 12.35 am in Kolkata after travelling almost 17 hours. The Boeing 777-200LR aircraft made a technical halt for refuelling and change of crew due to Flying Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) before it again resumed its journey to reach Mumbai at 4 am.Similarly, Flight AI 186 from Vancouver landed in Kolkata at 4.10 pm on Saturday for refuelling. The Boeing 777-300ER flew more than 15 hours non-stop before touching down in Kolkata. It departed for Delhi after refuelling.An official at Kolkata airport said the time schedule for regular maintenance work on the primary runway was adjusted to accommodate the Vancouver flight. "Between Tuesdays and Thursdays, the primary runway is usually shut from 11 am to 4 pm for regular maintenance. During this time, the secondary runway is available for operations. The Notice to Airmen (NOTAM), a notification issued to pilots about the closure, was thereafter altered. Now, the primary runway opens at 3.30 pm so that AI 186 does not face any problem when it arrives," the official pointed out.In the absence of the primary runway in Kolkata, the Vancouver flight would otherwise have had to make a landing in Dhaka for refuelling.With no certainty about when Pakistan will reopen the airspace and routes will be restored, the travel trade industry in Kolkata has urged Air India to consider operating the flight from Kolkata, running the Delhi-Kolkata leg as an ‘international-cum-domestic' sector. "These flights are making a technical stop in Kolkata. Many on board the flights, who are from the east, have to again take flights back to Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Ranchi or Guwahati. It would be great if these passengers could disembark in Kolkata. Also, this would gift Kolkata a long-awaited long-haul international sector flight," a travel agent said.Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has time and again pointed at the need for Kolkata to have a direct flight to Europe and America. Officials said this was the opportune moment for the Bengal govt to reach out to the Centre and request it to assign traffic rights for the flight to Kolkata. That, an official said, should not be a problem as AI was an Indian carrier.
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