Starting May 15, 2026, Air India will launch flights to Halwara, Ludhiana with double daily service from Delhi. This will be a new station for Air India. The flight schedule has been designed to offer same-day connectivity via Delhi to destinations across the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe, among others. With this, passengers from Halwara/Ludhiana and surrounding areas can conveniently travel with Air India to Delhi and take seamless, onward connections through the same terminal to destinations such as London, Birmingham, Rome, Milan, and Paris – on a single ticket with baggage through-checked to their final destinations.
AI481 DEL0555 – 0705HWR
AI482 HWR0755 – 0910DEL
AI483 DEL1255 – 1410HWR
AI484 HWR1440 – 1555DEL
The first departure to Halwara caters to traffic coming in at early hours from Australia and the midnight bank from Frankfurt and Paris, while the morning departure from Halwara to Delhi caters to traffic connecting to the mid day bank of Air India to Europe. Likewise the miday Delhi Halwara departure connects European arrivals back to Halwara, apart from the large domestic feed.
Ludhiana has another airport in the form of Sahnewal airport which is small and cannot handle narrow body aircraft. In the past, Alliance Air has operated flights from Ludhiana, which had a high cancellation rate due to lack of navigational aids. The Halwara airport uses the runway of Indian Air Force Station Halwara, with a dedicated terminal having come up in the last few years. The airport is located South West of Ludhiana.
Ludhiana is one of the largest urban areas in Punjab and is the industrial powerhouse for the state. Apart from the industrial traffic, the migrant traffic and VFR (Visiting Friends and Relatives) will drive the traffic for these flights, saving hours and inconvenience of the bus and car ride to Delhi. This flight automatically helps Air India take up traffic bound for Europe, Australia and North America for the convenience of boarding at Halwara, since coming to Delhi via other means opens up other carriers for the passengers. This potentially opens up more connectivity in future from the Air India group with possibilities of flights from Mumbai / Bengaluru by Air India Express to strengthen the positioning at Halwara and keep competition at bay.
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Very smart move by air india plus the 2 daily frequency is excellent strategy