With India’s growing economic aspiration as well as the stated intent of the government to build hubs for international air travel in our key airports, let’s look at the state of the nation and understand the dynamics of the rapidly evolving international route network of Indian carriers. This post analyses the top 10 departure nodes for Indian carriers, the fascinating emerging battle between Indigo and the Air India group and analyse their strategies there of. All data is from booking engines for flights available for sale in end November/early December as of mid October.
Let’s dive into the data into the top 10 departure hubs from India
| Rank | Airport | Indigo | Air India | Air India Express | Akasa+SpiceJet | Total Nov 24 |
| 1 | Delhi | 23 | 53 | 3 | 4 | 83 |
| 2 | Mumbai | 27 | 27.5 | 5 | 8 | 67.5 |
| 3 | Chennai | 13 | 3.5 | 2.5 | 0 | 19 |
| 4 | Hyderabad | 15.5 | 1 | 2.5 | 19 | |
| 5 | Kozhikode | 3 | 0 | 12.3 | 2 | 17.3 |
| 6 | Cochin | 5 | 2.5 | 8 | 1 | 16.5 |
| 7 | Bangalore | 11.5 | 2.5 | 0.5 | 0 | 14.5 |
| 8 | Kannur | 2 | 8 | 10 | ||
| 9 | Kolkata | 6 | 0.5 | 1 | 7.5 | |
| 10 | Thiruvananthapuram | 1 | 5.9 | 6.9 |
If one was to look at where these planes fly to, here in descending order are the top 10 destination cities from India
| Rank | Top 10 Destinations | Indigo | Air India group | Akasa/Spice | Total |
| 1 | Dubai | 14.5 | 23 | 10.5 | 48 |
| 2 | Singapore | 11.3 | 13 | 24.3 | |
| 3 | Doha | 12 | 8 | 1 | 21 |
| 4 | Abu Dhabi | 12 | 7.5 | 1 | 20.5 |
| 5 | Sharjah | 4 | 11 | 0 | 15 |
| 6 | Jeddah | 7 | 5 | 2 | 14 |
| 7 | Dammam | 5 | 9 | 0 | 14 |
| 8 | Bangkok | 6.3 | 5 | 2 | 13.3 |
| 9 | Muscat | 3 | 7.5 | 10.5 | |
| 10 | London | 0 | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| Total | 75.1 | 97 | 16.5 | 188.6 |
*London has been counted ahead of Colombo and Kathmandu though they receive more frequencies from Indian carriers on account of the fact that seat wise London is far ahead given that all the deployment is on wide body aircraft.
Also read: The next 20 – growth beyond the top 10 and The top 10 airports in India for domestic traffic
A few trends are clear
- Indigo has kept expanding its international footprint both in terms of number of nodes from India (e.g. the recent launch of international services from Coimbatore) as well as deepening its footprint across the 6 metros. A key focus of their route growth has been to Singapore (2nd largest destination0 and Abu Dhabi (4th largest destination) over the last 6 months with new services from across the country. Their international flying has accelerated from 107 daily departures on May 24 to 121 daily departures on November 24. Alongside their recently announced codeshare with Malaysia airlines, they have announced an intent to add 7 more international destinations during this financial year, further growing their network. With only Jaffna and Mauritius confirmed additions as of now, there is considerable excitement around Indigo’s expansion which in general seems more dispersed around the country
2. Air India has concentrated its international flying to its stated 3 hubs of Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru with limited international service beyond these 3 airports (Kochi being a notable exception). While the airline has persisted and in some cases strengthened a few non metro point to point flights (like those from Ahmedabad and Goa to London Gatwick or Amritsar to Birmingham), bulk of their frequency growth has been in these 3 metro markets, with the latest addition being the 6 weekly service from Bengaluru to London. Air India has further expanded its long haul network with the consistent deployment of its better product aircraft to London Heathrow and USA routes, including the start in winter of its A359 service on the Delhi New York routes. With the deployment of the A350 aircraft on long haul services, Air India has freed up some of its 777 aircraft to double departures on Delhi to Toronto and move Delhi to Washington from its 788 aircraft to 777 aircraft.
3. Air India has also withdrawn from a few services in the Middle East and handed them over to Air India express (e.g. routes like Delhi to Dammam and Bahrain, Mumbai to Muscat, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait), leaving the full service carrier to largely focus on Dubai, Doha and Saudi Arabia routes.
4. With the Vistara integration, the airline will get more frequency to key destinations like London, Paris, Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Frankfurt and will also inherit new destinations like Bali and Mauritius. How this consolidated network evolves will be fascinating to watch
5. Akasa has taken its baby steps into the Middle East market with 5+ daily departures largely out of Mumbai. Spicejet on the other hand largely flies only the lucrative Dubai route with a few flights to Bangkok. One would expect measured expansion from both carriers, with Spice jet potentially returning to its old network pre covid assuming it still has the service rights.
6. While Delhi is the largest market and an Air India citadel and hub, a keen battle is playing out in Mumbai between the Indigo and Air India group, both of which have doubled down on the key Middle East market, with similar networks and frequencies for both airline groups. Delhi and Mumbai account for 1 in 2 international departures by Indian carriers
7. Indigo remains dominant across other cities and has indeed expanded its footprint at Chennai and Bengaluru quite actively over the last few months, expanding its services to Singapore and Colombo while adding on Mauritius as a new destination from Bengaluru. The one city where Indigo has contracted its network to that prior to Covid is Kolkata which Indigo had tried to build as part of its 4 hubs strategy. With the potential resumption of direct services to China per press reports, it will be interesting to if Indigo brings back services it had to markets like Guangzhou and Chengdu
8. The Kerala Middle East market continues to be a strong turf for Air India express and propels 4 Kerala airports to the top 10 in rankings. Interestingly, neither Kannur nor Kozhikode are amongst even the top 40 domestic airports – but just the strength of their demand to the Middle East and elsewhere allows them to command top billing in international markets. These markets are the citadels for Air India express and alongside other markets like Mangalore and Trichy, form a bulk of their international flying as on date though this may change with their stated intent to also expand eastwards for which the markets of origin will be different
For the passionate followers of Indian aviation, there has never been a more exciting time with 2 scaled carrier groups expanding outwards and regaining lost market share for Indian carriers. With the healthy order book of wide body aircraft and aircraft like the XLR suited for long range flying, one looks forward to our airlines further spreading their wings.
The author, who has a day job in consumer goods, is a self confessed aviation geek with an abiding interest in airline network evolution. A frequent flyer with a passion for travel, free time is spent gathering information on new flights and routes. You can reach him at @BOMLHR on X, Skyscraper city amongst other platforms.