Air India and IndiGo cancelled or diverted multiple services to Riyadh on Thursday after missile and drone activity around Saudi airports, halting one of India's busiest Gulf corridors at the start of the winter travel season. Air India said flight AI2243 from Delhi returned to the capital mid-route, while IndiGo diverted a Hyderabad–Riyadh leg to Dammam as carriers monitored alerts tied to attacks claimed by Yemen's Houthi movement.
Air India's response
The Tata Group carrier said it cancelled all flights to and from Riyadh through 10 October "in view of the evolving situation" and promised full refunds to passengers holding tickets on affected dates. The airline identified AI2243, operating Delhi to King Khalid International Airport, as the first turnaround, saying the decision was taken in the interest of passenger and crew safety after airspace and airport warnings shifted during the climb-out phase.
Air India operates several weekly frequencies between Indian metros and Riyadh, a route that carries a mix of contract workers, students and family visitors. Airport operators in Delhi and Mumbai reported long queues at airline desks as travellers sought rebooking on Dammam or Jeddah services that remained on the schedule, though those flights faced their own delay boards as Saudi authorities managed air-traffic flows around intercepts.
IndiGo's diversions and cancellations
IndiGo, India's largest airline by domestic share, said it cancelled Riyadh–Delhi services scheduled for Thursday and Friday and shelved Friday rotations on the Riyadh–Hyderabad and Riyadh–Mumbai pairs. Airline sources described the situation as still evolving and advised passengers not to travel to airports without checking SMS updates, a caution that matters on routes where many travellers buy tickets through agents rather than airline apps.
The carrier's Hyderabad diversion to Dammam illustrated how pilots were choosing alternate Saudi gateways when Riyadh arrivals were closed or held. IndiGo did not immediately publish passenger counts, but aviation analysts noted that low-cost Gulf links underpin remittance-heavy communities in Telangana and Kerala, making even a 48-hour pause politically sensitive for state governments that field consular calls.
Regional context passengers are weighing
Saudi civil aviation authorities said drone and missile strikes on King Khalid and Abha airports earlier in the week killed three people and injured dozens, prompting the Saudi-led coalition to announce retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen. Witnesses in Riyadh reported fresh explosions on Thursday as interceptors engaged incoming projectiles, keeping the kingdom's primary international hub on a heightened security footing.
For Indian ministries, the disruption lands alongside broader Gulf volatility that has already pushed up jet-fuel surcharges on long-haul routes. Officials have not issued a travel advisory specific to Saudi Arabia beyond routine registration prompts, but airlines' voluntary cancellations effectively signal that corporate travel desks should treat Riyadh as a day-by-day proposition until Saudi regulators publish stable arrival rates.
What ticket holders should expect
Both airlines said refunds would process automatically for cancelled sectors, while rebooking policies for passengers already in Saudi Arabia were being handled case by case at airport service counters. Travel insurers typically treat government-ordered airport closures as covered events, but policies differ on missile-threat cancellations initiated by carriers themselves, leaving many passengers to absorb hotel costs unless employers intervene.
Aviation consultants said Indian carriers might redeploy wide-body capacity to Europe or North America if Gulf ground time stretches beyond the weekend, a move that could ease domestic fare pressure but would strand Hajj and Umrah operators preparing for cooler-month peaks. For now, the published halt through 10 October sets the earliest moment airlines will reassess whether King Khalid's approach paths are stable enough to resume double-digit daily flights from India.