Over the last few years Indian aviation has undergone a sea change, with acquisition of Air India by the Tata group, merger of four airlines into two, widebody order placement and wet-leasing widebody aircraft by IndiGo, and a general focus on international operations by almost all carriers. Indian carriers have traditionally missed the international opportunity with over half the market being carried by foreign carriers. The reason stated often was the lack of widebody capacity in the country, which is set to change over the coming years as Air India inducts more planes and IndiGo starts inducting the A350s starting 2027.
Data for this article has been provided by Cirium, an aviation analytics company and is exclusive for this article. The true measure for capacity has always been ASKs (Available Seat Kilometers) and by ASK, for a sample week in December when a lot of new services by both Indian and Foreign carriers are starting, the split is 56.7% with foreign carriers. Convert that to frequencies, and it is 52% in favor of foreign carriers. A lot of foreign carriers deploy their widebody aircraft shoring up the ASKs while Indian carriers have higher frequencies with the narrowbody aircraft in some cases. Stepping away from these two measures, this article is focused on seats on offer, because in the end what matters is how many passengers flew as a general metric.
International Summary
There will be 4529 weekly international departures from India this December, with 85 different airlines operating, from 32 airports in India, to 95 airports across the world. There are eight airports out of 32 where international services are provided only by Indian carriers, while there are five airports where international services are provided only by foreign carriers.
Top 10 airports – by seats
The top 10 airports for international flights from India, sorted by seats show no surprises. Delhi and Mumbai remain in lead with Bengaluru now in a commanding third position. Chennai looks safe at number four, with Hyderabad at fifth and Kochi now at sixth position.
The split by percentage is as below,
Top 10 international airports serviced from India
The top 10 airports comprise 58% of all international seats from India. The top 10 airports connected from India are,
Top 10 international sectors
Nine out of top 10 routes to international points from India involve Mumbai or Delhi. Mumbai – Dubai tops the list, followed by Delhi – Dubai. Delhi – London Heathrow and Mumbai – London Heathrow, are the next two. Five routes are from Delhi, four from Mumbai and one from Chennai, with the international points being Dubai, London Heathrow, Kathmandu, Bangkok, Abu Dhabi and Singapore.
Top 10 airlines
IndiGo continues to dominate the international landscape with seats on offer, with the top three carriers now being Indian, with Emirates and Etihad, both from UAE occupying the fourth and fifth position.
Tail note
Indian’s foreign traffic is driven by Indians right now rather than Foreign Arrivals which have remained muted on the other side of the pandemic. With Indian carriers committed to expanding international presence, there is a high change that by end of 2026, Indian carriers will be at equal footing if not higher.
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