new delhi afghanistan airspace has been shut for commercial flights to from and over the country starting monday aug 16 morning india time leaving several indians waiting to return home on air india stranded in kabul and forcing airlines to take longer routes while flying between india and the west from now on only military aircraft can now fly to and from kabul the only guarded airport in the country till this restriction remainsdeclaring kabul airspace which covers the entire country as uncontrolled the afghanistan civil aviation authority acaa on monday issued two notice to airmen notam advising transiting overflying commercial aircraft to reroute and declaring civilian side of kabul airport closed till further notice from an india perspective this sudden move meant air india could not operate its delhikabul return flight on monday that was to fly home over 160 peopleafghanistan is not as big as pakistan flight from delhi and say london or new york can go pakistaniranturkey and then beyond instead of the earlier pakistanafghanistanturkmenistanuzbekistan route us nonstops will remain direct and not take a fuelling stop enroute the difference in flying time will be between 20 minutes to 15 hours depending on other factors like wind for flights between india and the west said senior pilots international flights between southeast asia like to and from singapore and the west will also be similarly affectedon monday ais usdelhi enroute nonstops had to reroute at the last minute a boeing 777 operating from chicago to delhi ai 126 was just about to enter the afghan airspace when closure happened both this flight and san franciscodelhi had to divert to sharjah and after getting refuelled there headed homethe indian pilots guild union of ai pilots applauded the swift decisionmaking by pilots of ai 126 to avoid inconvenience to passengers and cost to company they opted to extend their flight duty time and safely operated another sector sharjahdelhi over 24 hours in uniform they land safely in delhi all in a days work for ai pilots ipg tweeteda terra avia bakudelhi was in afghan airspace and had to turn back to take the longer route to delhi this brought back memories of the painful 138 days when pakistan airspace was closed for overflying from february 27 2019 and all affected international flights had to longer routes between the east and the westa virgin atlantic flight took off from delhi for london after afghan airspace was closed on monday afternoon this flight vs 301 last wednesday aug 11 took about 9 hours when it took the straight route overflying afghanistan and on monday avoiding the country meant the journey extended to about 10 hours one hour morevistara says it has stopped overflying afghan airspace on its delhilondon flights indigo said it is avoiding afghanistan airspace since the evening of august 15 2021 and will continue doing so until the situation improvesforeign airlines including lufthansa qatar airways british airways etihad and united also said they are not overflying afghanistan