Indira Gandhi International Airport is the primary international airport serving Delhi, the capital of India, and the National Capital Region (NCR). The airport, spread over an area of 5,106 acres (2,066 ha), is situated in Palam, Delhi, 15 km (9.3 mi) southwest of the New Delhi Railway Station and 16 km (9.9 mi) from New Delhi city centre. Named after Indira Gandhi (1917–1984), the former Prime Minister of India, it is the busiest airport of India in terms of passenger traffic since 2009. It is also the busiest airport in the country in terms of cargo traffic. In the financial year of 2023-24, the airport handled 7.36 crore passengers, the highest ever in the airport's history. As of 2024, it is the tenth-busiest airport in the world, as per the latest rankings issued by the UK-based air consultancy firm, OAG. It is the second-busiest airport in the world by seating capacity, having a seating capacity of over 36 lakh seats, and the busiest airport in Asia by passenger traffic, handling over 6.55 crore passengers in 2023. In fact, it is routinely one of the busiest airports in the world, according to the Airports Council International rankings.
SpiceJet is an Indian low-cost airline headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana. As of November 2023, it is the fourth largest airline in India by number of domestic passengers carried, with a market share of 6.2% and connects 73 destinations, including 60 Indian and 13 international from its bases at Delhi and Hyderabad.
InterGlobe Aviation Limited, doing business as IndiGo, is a low-cost airline headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is the largest airline in India by passengers carried and fleet size, with a 60.5% domestic market share as of March 2024. It is the largest individual Asian airline, and one of the largest in the world in terms of passengers carried, with more than 100 million passengers carried in 2023. As of April 2024, IndiGo operates over 2,000 daily flights to 122 destinations – 88 domestic and 34 international, with a fleet of over 350 aircraft. It has its primary hub at Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi.
Shri Guru Gobind Singh Ji Airport is a domestic airport serving the city of Nanded, in the state of Maharashtra, India. It was inaugurated on 4 October 2008 by the former Minister of Civil Aviation, Praful Patel, and the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh, with Kingfisher Airlines flying a special commemorative flight to the airport using its ATR-72 turboprop aircraft. It is named after Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth and the last Sikh Guru.
Sonari Airport, also known as Jamshedpur Airport, is a domestic airport in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India, owned by Tata Steel. It is located approximately 4.4 km (2.7 mi) from the city centre. It is the main airport serving the city of Jamshedpur and adjoining regions. The airport was in commercial operations until 2016, when the operations from the airport was ceased. After efforts taken by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of Jharkhand and Tata Steel, The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) granted licence to the airport for public use on 25 January 2023. It reopened for commercial operations between Kolkata and Bhubaneswar from 31 January 2023.
Bathinda Airport is a domestic airport and an Indian Air Force base serving the city of Bathinda and the Malwa region in Punjab, India. It is located 26 kilometres (16 mi) north-west of the city in Bhisiana and near the village of Virk Kalan. The airport operates commercial flights under the Airports Authority of India as a civil enclave of the Bhisiana Air Force Station. Alliance Air was the only commercial airline that operated flights from the airport to Delhi from December 2016 till 2020. Since then, the airport remained inactive, until when in September 2023, FlyBig, restarted flight operations by starting flights to Ghaziabad and later to Dehradun from 18 September 2023.
AIX Connect, formerly known as AirAsia India, is an Indian low-cost airline headquartered in Bangalore (Bengaluru), Karnataka and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Air India Limited which in turn is owned by Tata Group. The airline was founded as a joint venture between Tata Sons and AirAsia Bhd and commenced operations in June 2014 with Bangalore as its primary operating base. From 2020 to 2022, AirAsia Bhd gradually disinvested its shares in the joint venture and sold them to Tata Sons. In December 2022, after the entire shares of AirAsia India was acquired by Tata Sons, the airline was renamed AIX Connect ahead of its merger with Air India Express.
Air Costa was an Indian regional airline headquartered in Vijayawada and based out of Chennai International Airport. It was owned by Indian business company LEPL Group. The airline commenced operations as a regional airline in October 2013 using two Embraer E-170 aircraft, with the first flight taking off from Chennai on 16 October 2013. The airline received a permit for pan-India operations in October 2016. The airline focused on connectivity between tier II and tier III cities in the country, and invested ₹600 crore (US$75 million) as of 2015. Air Costa operated 32 daily flights to nine destinations from its focus cities Chennai and Vijayawada as of 2015. The airline had a maintenance center in Chennai. On 28 February 2017, it suspended operations until further notice.
TruJet was an Indian regional airline based at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad. The airline commenced operations in July 2015 and ceased all operations in February 2022. This is not to be confused with TruJet Media International which is based in London, England.
Air Carnival was an Indian regional airline based at Coimbatore International Airport with a hub at Chennai International Airport. Air Carnival was promoted by the Coimbatore Marine College (CMC) Group. It was founded in 2013 as a charter airline but transitioned to scheduled operations within South India, which were launched in July 2016.
Air Pegasus was an Indian regional airline headquartered in Bangalore and based at Kempegowda International Airport. The airline was a subsidiary of Decor Aviation, an aircraft ground-handling services company. It commenced operations on 12 April 2015 with its inaugural flight between Bangalore and Hubli. The airline suspended operations on 27 July 2016, facing financial difficulties. At that time, Air Pegasus was serving eight airports across South India with a hub at Kempegowda International Airport in Bangalore, using a fleet of three ATR 72-500 aircraft. Their flying licence was suspended by DGCA on 22 November 2016. Managing director Shyson Thomas stated in late 2017 that Air Pegasus would return to the skies in early 2018, as the company had formed a relationship with Dawn Aviation and was about to settle all of its debts. Several cases have been filed against Air Pegasus chairman Shyson Thomas, Shyna Thomas and son Ashwin Thomas who was managing director. Till date no debts have been cleared and Air Pegasus office has been vacated from its MG road address.
Aviation in India can be broadly divided into military and civil aviation. India has an extensive civilian air transportation network and is amongst the fastest-growing aviation markets in the world according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
Civil aviation in India, the world's third-largest civil aviation market as of 2020, traces its origin back to 1911, when the first commercial civil aviation flight took off from a polo ground in Allahabad carrying mail across the Yamuna river to Naini.
Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik, known by its acronym UDAN-RCS is a regional airport development program of the Government of India and part of the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) of upgrading under-serviced air routes.RCS scheme consists of setting up Greenfield airports and as well as upgradation of Brownfield airports. Its goal is to make air travel affordable and improve economic development in India. At the beginning of the scheme, out of a total of 486 airports, 406 were under-serviced and only 27 were well-served; out of 97 non-RCS airports only 12 were operational. The UDAN scheme was created to add to this number by expediting the development and operationalization of India's potential target of nearly 425 unserved, under-served, and mostly underdeveloped regional airports with regularly scheduled flights. However, several issues and criticisms of its poor infrastructure, dominance by larger airlines, degradation of regional airlines, and slow implementation have plagued the scheme. In October 2023, India has 149 operational airports for civil aviation, including 30 international, 12 customs, 107 domestic, and few more civil aviation enclaves within military air bases. India is also planning to build the second airports in the big cities to decongest, 6 by 2030, 15 by 2040 and 30 plus by 2047.
Fly Hornbill was a planned Indian Regional airline to be based in Guwahati. The airline was founded in 2016 and planned to start operations in early 2017 to provide air connectivity to North-Eastern destinations in India in place of Air India's subsidiary Alliance Air. However, as of September 2017 operations are yet to begin and any aircraft is yet to be acquired. The airline was seeking approvals from India's aviation regulator DGCA to start operations. The airline has also won the rights to operate flights on many Northeastern routes under the UDAN-RCS scheme. The airline however did not start operations and appears to have shutdown.
Pinnacle Air is an Indian charter airline based in Delhi. It was founded in 2004, and operations only began in the year 2008. The airline operates passenger charters to destinations across the country.
Hindon Airport, also spelled Hindan Airport, is a domestic airport and an Indian Air Force base in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, operated by the Airports Authority of India at Hindan Air Force Station of the Indian Air Force. It is the second commercial airport serving the National Capital Region after Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi.
flybig is an Indian regional airline based in Gurugram, Haryana, India. It is promoted by Gurugram-based Big Charter Private Limited. The airline began operations in December 2020 and is focused on connecting tier-2 cities within India. The airline is currently operating in north and northwest India.
Akasa Air, a brand of SNV Aviation Private Limited, is an Indian low-cost airline headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It was founded by Vinay Dube and Aditya Ghosh with investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala holding a 46% stake in the airline.
Just Udo Aviation Private Limited, doing business as Fly91, is an Indian low-cost regional airline headquartered in Ribandar, Goa, India. It operates from its base at Manohar International Airport in Mopa, North Goa district, with a fleet of two ATR-72 aircraft, to tier-2 and 3 cities of India. It was founded in January 2023 by former aviation veterans involved in Kingfisher Airlines, Harsha Raghavan and Manoj Chacko. It began commercial operations from 18 March 2024 to Bangalore and Hyderabad from its base at Goa and Sindhudurg, with flights to Lakshadweep, Jalgaon and other regional cities from April 2024 onwards.
