The Star Alliance member Air India is seeing a strong increase in demand and is therefore bringing pilots on leave back to the air service. However, the recovery is almost exclusively affecting domestic business on the subcontinent.

In some markets, since the beginning of the corona pandemic, it has been observed that the slump in domestic traffic was rather short-term and the industry was able to recover quickly. In Europe this is almost nowhere the case, even if, for example, within Spain or Italy, the airlines got away with a proverbial “black eye”. In Germany, domestic demand collapsed drastically in January 2020 and was vanishingly low.

India Times reports, citing an internal circular, that the leave of absence of numerous pilots will be lifted. You need this for domestic business. Additional pilots are also being sought for ATR turboprop aircraft.

The re-deployment of the pilots is likely to be limited to the domestic market for the time being, as international business has fallen extremely sharply. There is currently no prospect of rapid reactivations due to the pandemic situation. The carrier had to postpone the dates repeatedly.