Originally Posted by ChrisKSDF

The FAA downgrade will almost certainly throw a huge wrench into any plans Jet Airways has to re-launch BOM-JFK (via AUH) in May, which is the flight many of us are booked on.

Once a country is downgraded, any airline from that country must maintain the status quo. It may keep its current schedule, operated by the scheduled equipment at the time of downgrade, but it may not launch new service or even change equipment on existing services.

FAA cat 2 is the reason Philippine Airlines has a bunch of shiny new 77Ws flying routes like MNL-HKG but is still running ancient A340-300s and 747-400s MNL-LAX. They aren't allowed to change.

It'll be really interesting to see how this all plays out.