When it comes to international traffic from India, the market is skewed in favor of foreign carriers having an upper hand. While IndiGo has over the years called out its focus on international expansion, its major presence by both seats and ASK is Indian and is likely to remain so for a while. When it comes to capacity measurement in aviation, the golden metric is capacity by ASK (Available Seat Kilometers). However, the different stage lengths for each airline to their hub makes it a not so friendly metric to measure for flights out of India. Today we look at the top 10 foreign carriers operating from India by weekly seats in the market. Data for this article has been analysed based on data sourced from Cirium, an aviation analytics company and shared exclusively for Network Thoughts.
For records, IndiGo continues to lead on seats on offer out of India, while Air India leads on capacity by ASK. Purely in terms of seats, IndiGo, Air India and Air India Express are the top three carriers. SpiceJet has dropped out of top 10 while Akasa Air is yet to enter the club.
Interested in buying Lapel pins? Click here
Below are the top 10 foreign carriers which operate from India and offer the highest seats.
- Emirates
The Dubai headquartered airline has been referred to as “The national carrier of India” jokingly over the years. The airline offers the highest seats out of India as a single foreign carrier. The airline operates to 9 points in India, with highest seats to Mumbai, followed by Delhi and Bengaluru.
- Etihad
The Abu Dhabi headquartered airline got a boost in seats when it invested in Jet Airways. While all its investment in Jet Airways may have gone for a toss, the market access remains strong. The airline operates to 11 points in India, with Mumbai, Delhi and Kochi being the top three.
- Singapore Airlines
The airline has a 25.1% stake in Air India group now and it makes all the more sense when you know Singapore Airlines is the third largest foreign carrier in India, offering over 25000 seats a week to various points in India. This does not include the seats on offer by low cost subsidiary Scoot. The airline operates to eight points in India with highest seats on offer at Delhi, followed by Mumbai and Bengaluru.
- Qatar Airways
The airline has been wanting more seats for itself as it pales in front of its two middle eastern competitors Emirates and Etihad when it comes to seats on offer to India. However, Qatar and India have not amended their bilateral air services agreement for a while. Qatar Airways operates to 13 points in India with the top three being Delhi, Kochi and Mumbai.
- Air Arabia
The Sharjah headquartered airline is the third from the UAE to be in the top five. The low cost carrier operates to 13 points in India with highest seats to Mumbai, Delhi, Kochi and Trivandrum where it deploys 2380 weekly seats each.
- Saudia
The airline scales back its scheduled commercial flights during the Hajj season. For the month of August, filed schedule shows its operating to six destinations in India.
- Thai Airways
The India – Thailand market has grown rapidly over the last few years, especially post COVID. Thai Airways is a major operator between the two while many other private Thai carriers also operate to India. Thai Airways operates to seven destinations in India with Delhi being the biggest followed by Mumbai, helping get feeder traffic to points in ASEAN and beyond.
- Lufthansa
Lufthansa is the only inter-continental carrier in the top 10, with all others being from the region. Lufthansa operates to five points in India with maximum seats on offer from Delhi, followed by Mumbai and Bengaluru. These are also the points from where it operates to both Frankfurt and Munich.
- AirAsia Bhd.
The Malaysian low cost carrier has been pushing new routes in India with flights to 12 points with highest seats on offer from Trichy which is part of open-skies even as its expansion to metro’s remains tough due to lack of bilateral rights. The airline recently operated to Sri Vijaya Puram and pulled out within months.
- Srilankan Airlines
India – Sri Lanka connectivity has been increasing rapidly over the last few years and Sri Lankan airlines operates to 10 points in India with the highest seats on offer at Chennai, a short hop from Colombo, the hub for the airline.
Where do these airlines operate?
The dynamics are interesting at city level to understand where the Full Service carriers are flying, where the low cost carriers are flying. This is especially true in case of international routes where the rights and availability of seats dictate more than the demand which evolves over a period of time.
Found this article informative? Think of supporting Network Thoughts with Power of 10
Running this website incurs some cost, along with the data sourced for analytics. If you have liked this article, consider paying INR 10 via UPI. The site will continue to be free. This will help with the maintenance, upkeep and funding the research. You can also pay via Debit or Credit card by clicking on this link.
You can support Network Thoughts by ordering Network Thoughts baggage tags !
Follow NetworkThoughts on X (Formerly Twitter), Bsky, Facebook and YouTube.