With the Taliban taking control of Afghanistan‘s capital Kabul, including its airport, Afghan’s air space was reportedly declared incontrolled. In view of this, aircraft that have been going over the country are being asked to reroute. Due to this, Air India said that their scheduled Delhi to Kabul flight has been nixed.

Senior Air India officials said the Afghanistan airspace has been declared “uncontrolled” by the Kabul airport on Monday and flights have been asked to avoid the airspace.

“Airspace over Afghanistan is declared closed, so no aircraft can operate there. Our scheduled flight to Kabul also cannot go,” Indian Express quoted an Air India source as saying.

As of Sunday, Air India brought back 129 passengers from Kabul as the political scenario has taken a turn with the Taliban effectively taking over. According to the official, at least one flight would have been operational every day but the latest situation will not permit it.

“The events are changing very fast and we are responding to them as it happens,” a senior government official said.

As events unfold, images from flight tracking portal Flightradar24 show an Air India aircraft re-routing its flight path to avoid the Afghani airspace. Air India’s Chicago-Delhi flight re-did its flight path and entered Iran’s airspace.

According to an official, the flight before heading back to Delhi is expected to make an unscheduled stop at Sharjah, Qatar to refuel.

In a statement, the Afghanistan Civil Aviation Authority said that the Kabul airspace has been released to the military. It also added that the surrounding airspaces have been informed of this and that all transiting aircraft have been advised to reroute.

In a similar case, after the Balakot airstrike in 2019, Pakistan had shut its airspace for five months. This saw the flight duration of the Indian and foreign airlines increase by 70-90 minutes due to the detours.

Afghanistan stares at an uncertain future as former president Ashraf Ghani left the country just before Kabul fell to the Taliban on Sunday. Terra Avia’s flight from Baku in Azerbaijan to Delhi in India entered the Afghanistan airspace on Monday morning but then quickly turned around and decided to avoid it by flying around it.