Air India operates 36 Gulf flights today as West Asia war enters week five — but millions are still stranded

Air India and Air India Express together will operate 36 flights to and from West Asia today — a number that sounds substantial until you set it against the 150-plus Gulf flights the group was running daily before the Iran conflict disrupted regional airspace in late February. Twenty of today’s 36 flights are non-scheduled services to the UAE, secured through emergency slot negotiations with airport authorities in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah. Connections to Jeddah, Doha, Kuwait, and Tel Aviv remain suspended with no confirmed resumption date.

For the approximately 9 million Indian nationals living and working in the Gulf — the largest Indian diaspora community in any single region — the disruption has been sustained and cumulative. The first wave of evacuations in late February moved the most urgent cases. What has followed is a slower, more grinding experience: workers with expiring visas unable to travel home for renewal, patients needing medical care in India facing multi-week waits for seats, families separated with no clear timeline for reunion.

India’s March remittance data, when published, is expected to show a meaningful decline in Gulf transfers — a consequence of worker uncertainty, disrupted payroll processing at some Gulf employers, and the natural caution of people unsure whether their own travel situations will resolve. Gulf remittances typically account for over 35% of India’s total inward remittance flow, making any sustained disruption economically significant.

The Indian government has been working with civil aviation regulators in Oman and the UAE to open additional flight corridors that bypass the contested airspace over Iran and southern Iraq. Progress has been slow. The routes that would normally carry India-Gulf traffic are either closed or require navigational detours that add hours to flight times and significant fuel costs. Air India CEO Campbell Wilson has previously stated the Pakistan airspace restrictions alone are costing the group approximately ₹4,000 crore annually — and that figure does not include the additional burden of the West Asia situation.

The airline is running the Gulf flights at what amounts to emergency commercial logic: high load factors, premium pricing, and regulatory goodwill from both the Indian government and UAE authorities keeping the operation viable. For Indian workers in the Gulf watching the situation, today’s 36 flights represent something — but not nearly enough.