United Suspends Flights Between San Francisco-Delhi And Newark-Mumbai As It Stops Using Russian Airspace

United Airlines, a major American airline based in Chicago has suspended its two direct flights between San Francisco – Delhi and Newark – Mumbai as it has terminated its use of Russian airspace amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis.

The decision seems to be made in preparation for the United States declaring a ban on Russian aircraft using its airspace, which will almost surely be met with a tit-for-tat embargo of US aircraft entering Russian airspace.

United Temporarily Suspends 2 Flights to India

As per the details collected by our team the following United flights will stand canceled;

• UA867/UA 868 | San Francisco – Delhi – San Francisco | 01-06th March 2022
• UA829/UA830 | Newark – Mumbai – Newark | 01-03rd March 2022

United Airlines’ spokesperson called the move “temporary” but gave no further details. However, an internal communication rolled out by the airline stated;

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.

We do, however, have available routes outside Russia, which allow us to continually operate the ORD-DEL and EWR-DEL routes.

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.

On the other hand, American Airlines is avoiding Russian airspace for flights between Delhi and New York by flying via a route to the south of Russia.

Russia Imposed Ban On Airlines From 36 Countries

Russia’s national aviation agency imposed a ban on airlines from 36 nations, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Canada, in retaliation for similar restrictions placed on Russian airlines by the United States and its Nato allies.

On Sunday, European Union (EU) chief Ursula von der Leyen revealed the bloc’s decision to limit its airspace to Russian flights.