Air India Express has announced a summary of its Winter Schedule 2026, its largest winter network yet. Effective 25 October 2026 and rolled out in phases, the airline will operate around 585 daily flights, about 435 domestic and up to 150 international, across 65 stations and 220 routes. The fleet backing this is now over 105 aircraft, and the international network grows from 83 routes to more than 100.
In weekly terms, operations climb from about 3,150 flights in the Summer 2026 schedule to nearly 4,100 this winter, a jump of roughly 30% in a single season. One-stop connections across the network rise from about 1,330 to nearly 1,600 a week. More than 40 new routes are being added, of which 21 international and 15 domestic have been named so far.
The new routes
International
| Route | Frequency |
|---|---|
| Chennai – Singapore | 14x weekly |
| Bengaluru – Kathmandu | 7x weekly |
| Dubai – Goa (Dabolim) | 7x weekly |
| Bangkok – Indore | 4x weekly |
| Bangkok – Kochi | 4x weekly |
| Chandigarh – Sharjah | 4x weekly |
| Delhi – Riyadh | 4x weekly |
| Lucknow – Ras Al Khaimah | 4x weekly |
| Phuket – Hyderabad | 4x weekly |
| Abu Dhabi – Goa (Mopa) | 3x weekly |
| Amritsar – Abu Dhabi | 3x weekly |
| Bhopal – Sharjah | 3x weekly |
| Kochi – Kuwait | 3x weekly |
| Lucknow – Riyadh | 3x weekly |
| Mangaluru – Kuwait | 3x weekly |
| Mumbai – Kuwait | 3x weekly |
| Riyadh – Thiruvananthapuram | 3x weekly |
| Sharjah – Surat | 3x weekly |
| Bahrain – Thiruvananthapuram | 2x weekly |
| Bangkok – Visakhapatnam | 2x weekly |
| Mangaluru – Ras Al Khaimah | 2x weekly |
Domestic
| Route | Frequency |
|---|---|
| Bengaluru – Coimbatore | 14x weekly |
| Ahmedabad – Delhi | 7x weekly |
| Bengaluru – Goa (Mopa) | 7x weekly |
| Bengaluru – Jodhpur | 7x weekly |
| Bengaluru – Madurai | 7x weekly |
| Delhi – Sri Vijaya Puram (Port Blair) | 7x weekly |
| Delhi – Udaipur | 7x weekly |
| Hyderabad – Pune | 7x weekly |
| Mumbai – Nagpur | 7x weekly |
| Delhi – Jaipur | 5x weekly |
| Bhubaneswar – Sri Vijaya Puram (Port Blair) | 4x weekly |
| Indore – Navi Mumbai | 4x weekly |
| Bhopal – Navi Mumbai | 3x weekly |
| Hyderabad – Mangaluru | 3x weekly |
| Kolkata – Pune | 2x weekly |
From Gulf workhorse to India’s value carrier
Air India Express took off in 2005 as the low-cost arm of Air India, built around one market: the Gulf. Its early network linked Kerala, coastal Karnataka and Tamil Nadu with the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, carrying the large expatriate workforce from southern India. For most of its first fifteen years, it was an all-Boeing 737 operator where domestic flying was little more than a positioning exercise for international sectors.
The turning point came with the Tata Group’s takeover of Air India in January 2022. The group chose to consolidate its two low-cost operations, folding AirAsia India (later renamed AIX Connect) into Air India Express. The integration brought an Airbus A320 fleet and a sizeable domestic network around Bengaluru, Delhi and Kolkata, while the airline unveiled a new brand identity in late 2023. The legal merger was completed in October 2024.
DGCA data shows what the merged airline actually flew. Through 2025, it averaged roughly 330 to 380 domestic and 110 to 135 international departures a day, peaking at 381 domestic and 135 international in April 2025. International flying slid gently through the year, from 134 a day in January to 110 by November, as growth went to the domestic network.
Then came the West Asia crisis. When regional airspace closed at the end of February 2026, Air India Express suspended scheduled flights to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, running ad-hoc relief flights instead. International departures collapsed from 114 a day in February to 41 in March, and climbed back only to 122 by August. Domestic flying also dipped through the summer, falling to 270 a day in July 2026, the lowest in this data.
Reading between the routes
Set against the DGCA numbers, the plan is bolder than the headline suggests. At 435 domestic departures a day, Winter 2026 sits 14% above the airline’s best month in this data (381 in April 2025) and 43% above August 2026. International, at 150 a day, would be 11% above its 2025 peak and 23% above August. In total, 585 departures a day is 13% above the April 2025 peak of 516. This is not a return to pre-crisis levels; it is a step well beyond them.
The 36 routes named so far add only about 176 weekly flights, 85 international and 91 domestic, against overall growth of roughly 950. Most of the growth therefore comes from extra frequencies on existing routes. At 585 daily departures on 105+ aircraft, each aircraft averages over five and a half sectors a day, which leaves little room for disruption.
The international additions follow the old Air India Express playbook, extended north and west. Lucknow, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Surat and Mangaluru gain Gulf links, while Saudi Arabia gets three new Riyadh routes from Delhi, Lucknow and Thiruvananthapuram. Ras Al Khaimah from Lucknow and Mangaluru shows the airline is willing to use secondary Emirates airports to reach catchments the bigger airports don’t serve as cheaply. The second theme is winter leisure. Bangkok gains Indore, Kochi and Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad gets Phuket, and Chennai – Singapore at double daily is the largest single international addition. Domestically, Bengaluru is clearly the hub, with Coimbatore at double daily and daily flights to Goa (Mopa), Jodhpur and Madurai, while Port Blair, Udaipur and Navi Mumbai all gain links timed for the peak season.
Network Thoughts
The real story is not the new routes but the pace. In August 2026, Air India Express flew about 427 departures a day, the winter plan calls for 585, a 37% step up in roughly two months, and in a season the chairman himself describes as one of elevated fuel costs. Growing hard in winter makes sense, since Gulf, Southeast Asian and domestic leisure demand peak together. The test is whether this capacity survives into Summer 2027, when leisure softens and yields come under pressure.
The tier-2 Gulf strategy remains Air India Express’ natural strength. Foreign carriers are limited to designated points of call in India, which leaves cities like Lucknow, Bhopal, Surat and Mangaluru largely to Indian airlines. Here, the competition is IndiGo, not Emirates or Qatar Airways, and Air India Express has two decades of brand recall among Gulf travellers from these regions.
The jump to nearly 1,600 weekly one-stop connections is the quieter shift. Air India Express is no longer just a point-to-point Gulf carrier; it is slowly becoming a network airline, with Bengaluru, Delhi and the southern gateways acting as connecting points. Will Navi Mumbai emerge as its next hub? Can the airline hold yields while flying its fleet this hard? This winter will tell us whether the value carrier is ready to play at network scale.
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