From Sunday (Mar 27) onwards, 6 Indian and 60 foreign airlines from 40 countries will operate 3,249 weekly flights to and from India under the summer schedule.
There is no airline from China running any flight to and from India yet.
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Airfares
It is expected that a gradual increase in connectivity to the allowed number of flights will cut down fares from the high levels under the bubble arrangements.
However, the fares will likely still be higher than before the pandemic due to Russia’s war on Ukraine pushing up oil prices.
IndiGo
IndiGo will have the highest international departures out of all airlines at 505 weekly flights.
Its Istanbul flight will resume from May 1 but its pre-pandemic China flights have not yet restarted.
Coming in at second is Air India at 361, followed by AI Express at 340 and Emirates at 170.
Tata-Owned Airlines
The three Tata Group airlines — AI, AI Express and Vistara will operate 757 weekly flights, including the only ones by an Indian carrier to North America, Europe, the Far East and Australia.
However, the conglomerate’s fourth airline AirAsia India still doesn’t have any international flights in the DGCA-approved schedule.
This could indicate the possibility of an early merger with AI Express to fly abroad on the latter’s licence.
Approved Foreign Destinations From India
Airlines had sought approval of their international schedules for this summer.
These schedules will be effective from Sunday (March 27) to October 29 this year.
So far, 1,466 departures per week by six Indian carriers have been approved.
They will fly to 43 destinations in 27 countries, including:
- UAE
- Singapore
- Thailand
- Qatar
- Maldives
- Saudi Arabia
- Nepal
- Bangladesh
- Turkey
- Malaysia
- UK
- France
- Germany
- US
- Canada
- Australia
- Israel
- Japan
- Hong Kong
- Russia
Approved Foreign Destinations To India
Meanwhile, 60 foreign airlines of 40 countries will be allowed to operate 1,783 weekly flights to and from India.
The airlines hail from countries such as:
- Malaysia
- Thailand
- Turkey
- US
- Germany
- Singapore
- Yemen
- Sri Lanka
- Bahrain
- Maldives
- Saudi Arabia
- Switzerland
- Netherlands
- France
- Japan
- Russia
- UAE
- Australia
- Qatar
- Britain
- Canada
- Egypt
US Flights
Air India has not stated if it plans to add US flights since United Airlines has suspended its Delhi-San Francisco and Mumbai-Newark flights.
These flights have been suspended because US carriers don’t overfly Russian airspace, something that AI does.
Delta is yet to resume India operations and American Airlines has just one nonstop as of now, a daily Delhi-JFK flight.
Emirates
Emirates, the biggest foreign airline in terms of flights to and from India, will operate 170 weekly flights between Dubai and nine Indian cities.
It will have five and four dailies to Mumbai and Delhi, respectively.
Air France-KLM
Air France-KLM will progressively increase flight operations, starting with 20 weekly flights in April.
This frequency will increase to 30 weekly flights in May.
Air France will operate from four gateways- Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai — and KLM from Delhi and Mumbai.
Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Atlantic will launch a second daily service between London and Delhi from June 1.
After adding its service from Mumbai, the airline will offer three daily flights from India, making it its biggest flying programme ever to India.