Air India said yesterday it will cut international operations on its widebody aircraft by 15 per cent for the next few weeks, citing ongoing safety inspections and operational disruptions following last week’s deadly crash of one of its Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
Authorities continue to investigate the crash of flight AI171, which killed 241 people and marked the world’s deadliest aviation disaster in a decade.
The airline said in a statement that inspections had been completed on 26 of its 33 Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 aircraft, and those 26 have been cleared for service.
The cuts, effective until at least mid-July, were being implemented “to ensure stability of operations, better efficiency and minimise inconvenience to passengers,” the Tata Group-owned airline said.
The remaining planes will be checked in the coming days and additional checks are also planned for its Boeing 777 fleet, Air India added.
Earlier yesterday, Air India chairman N Chandrasekaran said the flight that crashed had a clean engine history.
In an interview with Indian broadcaster Times Now, Chandrasekaran said Air India flight 171’s right engine was new and installed in March 2025, and that the left engine was last serviced in 2023.
The Dreamliner was fitted with GE Aerospace’s GEnx engines.
Air India also cited geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and “night curfews in many European and East Asian airspaces” as contributing factors behind flight cancellations, which have totalled 83 over the past six days.
Meanwhile, investigators believe the Air India Boeing Dreamliner had its emergency-power generator operating when it crashed last week in India’s Ahmedabad, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday citing people familiar with the probe.
Boeing said it will defer to India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau for comment.
&uuid=(email))