NEW DELHI: India could see 5% more flights this winter with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) approving the winter schedule for 25,007 weekly domestic flights — up from 23,732 last winter. Effective from October 27 to March 29, 2025, domestic flights will operate to and from 124 airports. Last winter the number of airports was 125. Since then, while Pondicherry is back on the air map, Pakyong and Tezpur have found no takers among airlines.The coming winter schedule has 3% more flights than the ongoing summer schedule at 24,275 weekly domestic departures.
Among big airlines, the recently expanded Air India Express (with erstwhile AirAsia India merging into it) will see the biggest jump of domestic flights at 46%. While last winter, Tata’s low cost airlines (they were then two separate carriers) had 1,940 weekly domestic departures, this time the number has gone up to 2,832.
Domestic market leader IndiGo will have the largest number of domestic flights at 13,691 per week — up 4.4% from 13,119 last winter. Tata Group airlines’ (AI + AI Express + Vistara, which merges into AI next month) combined domestic presence will be at 7,611 weekly domestic flights — up 23% from 6,209 last winter.
Akasa schedule has increased 25.2% from 790 last winter to 989 this time. SpiceJet, which just got fund infusion, has seen its schedule drop 39% from 2,132 last time to 1,297 this winter.
To be sure, approved schedule is the maximum number of flights Ana airline can operate. The actual number of flights operated depends on several factors like passenger demand and most importantly airline’s financial ability.
“Winter schedule 2024 of scheduled domestic airlines has been finalised after the slot conference meeting held in Sept 2024. The final slots clearances have been received from respective airport operators,” DGCA said in a statement.
