Air India, AI Express to do away with flight number ‘171’

Air India and Air India Express will do away with flight number ‘171’ after the fatal crash of the Air India plane that killed 241 people onboard on Thursday, according to sources.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft that went down soon after take-off was operating the flight ‘171’ from Ahmedabad to London



Gatwick.

Sources on Saturday said it is a general practice that airlines stop using particular flight numbers after fatal flight accidents.

From June 17 onwards, the flight number of Ahmedabad-London Gatwick will be ‘AI 159’ instead of ‘AI 171’. The required changes to the booking system were made on Friday, one of the sources said.