India was one of the first markets to recover from the pandemic. The Indian domestic industry was back and ahead of pre-COVID numbers in 2023, with a setback of one major airline shutting down. This was a year ahead of IATA’s prediction. On the international side, though, the air traffic remained muted and part of the reason was lack of capacity due to supply chain issues. The other part of the reason was foreigners turning their back on India, with Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTA) still lower than what it was pre-COVID.
Data for this blog post has been exclusively obtained from Cirium – an aviation analytics company.
Read: Routes & Network: In conversation with IndiGo’s head of Network Planning
The Mumbai – Dubai route sees 26,932 seats per week each way, making it the route with highest seats on offer on the international segment out of India. This is closely followed by Delhi – Dubai which sees 22,930 seats per week each way. While the first two routes being those to Dubai from the two largest airports in India, the next two are to London Heathrow. Occupying the third position is Delhi – London Heathrow with 19,034 weekly seats and Mumbai – London Heathrow follows with 15,030 weekly seats.
The unavailability of bilateral rights to add flights to Dubai shows off next with Mumbai – Abu Dhabi occupying the fifth spot and Delhi – Bangkok the sixth spot. The first city pair to appear after the dominance of Mumbai and Delhi is Chennai with Chennai – Singapore sector being number seven with 11,685 weekly seats on offer. Delhi – Singapore, Mumbai – Jeddah, and Mumbai – Singapore, complete the top ten. Amongst the top 10, five see point of origin as Mumbai, four as Delhi and one as Chennai. On the destination side, out of 10, three routes are to Singapore, two each to Dubai and London and one each to Abu Dhabi, Bangkok and Jeddah.
Dubai has higher domination in the 11 to 20 standings with four out of these 10 being routes
to Dubai, with the other being Abu Dhabi, Colombo, Kathmandu, Doha and Singapore.
Top cities
On the Indian side, the top cities which comprise this list are Delhi and Mumbai tied at six routes each, followed by Chennai at three routes, Bengaluru and Kochi tied at 2 routes each and Hyderabad with a single route.
On the international side, Dubai is the winner all the way, partly so because of the huge number of seats which are allowed as part of the bilateral air services agreement between India and Dubai. With six of two routes to Dubai, it is followed by Singapore at four routes, and Abu Dhabi at three routes. London Heathrow comes in next with two, with the rest being Bangkok, Jeddah, Kathmandu, Doha and Colombo at one each.
Network Thoughts
International routes are driven by two challenges, slots at major airports and bilateral rights. There has been a huge demand from tier II cities to have direct flights to Dubai / Abu Dhabi / Singapore or Bangkok, however the focus on yields and sheer volumes from Delhi and Mumbai outweigh any benefit that an airline will have with such routes. It’s only when the metro routes are exhausted or sufficiently covered, does it warrant an airline to look beyond.
The trickle of feed from multiple destinations to a hub is far more economical which helps tide over the seasonality effectively.
Also Read: Top 20 international destinations from India by frequencies
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