Politics often affects travel, as everyone is well aware. For the past few days, flights between Canada and India now take up to 4 hours longer due to a political conflict, specifically a new ban on flying over Pakistan. But it doesn’t apply to all airlines…
Canada had its own political conflict with India recently, which even prevented us from visiting for a short time.
This conflict doesn’t involve Canada at all, but several flights between here and India are still affected, unfortunately.
Here are the details of the Pakistan airspace ban.
What is the Pakistan airspace ban?
It’s not new for an airspace ban to have a significant impact on the aviation world.
The Russian ban has greatly affected the price of long-distance flights to Asia for several years. This makes it even more interesting to use fixed-price airline points to go to Asia (like I just did in business class).
The Pakistan ban affects far fewer flights, and will, hopefully, last for much less time as well.
Here are the basics:
- India and Pakistan don’t like each other very much
- A new development has just taken place
- Pakistan has issued a ban on flying over the country
- For Indian airlines only
- So Air India flights are affected (YYZ and YVR)
- And Air Canada flights are not affected
- Flights take up to 4 hours longer (18hrs instead of 14hrs)
- Including a fuel stop in Europe often
- Should end May 23, 2025
- But politicians are obviously unpredictable
Maybe you’re not as interested in geopolitics as I am, but let me assure you that politicians from these 2 countries have hated each other for a very long time. But a recent terrorist attack in the disputed Kashmir region has caused an escalation in the conflict.
Indian airlines are now banned from Pakistani airspace.
Flights between India and several destinations, such as Canada, must make a detour.
No, it’s not a huge detour.
But since these flights between Canada and India are already among the longest in the world, several flights must now stop in Europe (Copenhagen or Vienna) to refuel.
Which flights are affected by the Pakistan airspace ban?
Air India serves Toronto (YYZ) and Vancouver (YVR) from its main hub in Delhi (DEL). Both routes are affected, and flight times are extended.
This gives Air Canada a very big competitive advantage (at least for those booking last minute). In addition to the existing advantage which is one of the biggest, namely just not being on Air India!
(I’m reminding you since we’re talking about them, and because once again, like almost every week, someone goes viral because they find Air India terrible, because they clearly didn’t do any research at all, as if it wasn’t well-known! Now you know too. It’s especially true in business class; if you use your precious points to get a luxury flight for less, please don’t choose Air India!!!)
Air Canada serves Delhi from Montreal (YUL), Toronto, and Vancouver. Our national airline also offers flights from Toronto to Mumbai (BOM), but these are seasonal and are currently not operating.
The ban only affects Indian airlines, not flights to India. That’s a major difference, and it’s yet another example of things that sound similar that many will confuse together. So nothing changes if you travel on Air Canada.
How long is the delay caused by the Pakistan airspace ban?
The route from Toronto sometimes has to stop in Europe, but not every day. It depends on several factors, such as the aircraft’s weight.
The route from Vancouver must stop in Europe on every flight, but only heading to Asia (not in the other direction). The delay is obviously much longer in this case.
Before the ban, Vancouver-Delhi flights took about 14 hours and 25 minutes.
Now, it’s much longer.
You can see that a recent flight took a total of 18 hours 51 minutes to reach its destination. Pretty long for a direct flight!
By the way, I’ll take this opportunity to make an important distinction that is very little known, even to fairly experienced travelers: there are direct flights and nonstop flights, and they are NOT the same thing.
The terms are often incorrectly used interchangeably (like first class and business class). Several booking sites also always use direct without making a distinction.
A nonstop flight is what most people want; it doesn’t stop. A direct flight can still stop! But you don’t change planes. It’s actually very rare, but it can happen.
It happened to me because I wasn’t looking at that before it happened to me! But I’ve only had 1 in my life, on 500+ flights. So that gives you an idea of how rare it is.
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Summary
The Pakistan airspace ban that applies to Indian airlines greatly extends flights between India and several countries, including Canada. This means that the 2 Air India flights (Toronto and Vancouver) are much longer, especially those that have to stop in Europe.
What would you like to know about the Pakistan airspace ban for Indian airlines? Tell us in the comments below.
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Featured image: Kerala, India (photo credit: Vivek Kumar)
