Salman Shahid travels steadily between Srinagar, the largest metropolis in Indian-administered Kashmir, and New Delhi. He runs Rise, a personal teaching centre for college students aspiring to hitch the Indian Institutes of Expertise – the nation’s premier engineering colleges – in Srinagar, however his household relies in New Delhi.
Flying helps him save time. However more and more, he simply can not afford it.
Earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic, Shahid says, a one-way flight from Srinagar to New Delhi would price him about 3,300 rupees ($37.20) on common. “Now, the identical ticket is over 5,000 rupees ($56), and that, too, with very restricted time choices,” he factors out.
This 50 p.c surge in airfare has considerably affected his journey routine. “I don’t journey that steadily now,” he says. “Earlier, I’d make at the least 4 round-trips a month. Now, it’s come down to simply two.”
He remembers as soon as reserving a ticket for simply 1,700 rupees ($19) on Vistara, a home airliner, throughout a sale in 2019. “That type of pricing now looks like a dream,” he says, including that he struggles to know how airfare has escalated so sharply in such a brief interval.
He isn’t alone.
Based on a study printed final November by Airports Council Worldwide (ACI), a worldwide commerce affiliation representing greater than 2,000 airports in additional than 180 nations, India noticed a 43 p.c rise in home airfares within the first half of 2024, in contrast with 2019, the second-highest within the Asia Pacific and West Asia areas after Vietnam.
Worldwide fares additionally rose by 16 p.c. India was third on this class. A study representing 617 airports within the Asia Pacific and West Asia areas, carried out by ACI in partnership with Flare Aviation Consulting, a administration consulting boutique specialised within the aviation and airports sector, attributes this surge to excessive demand, restricted competitors on some routes, and a 38 p.c spike in aviation turbine gas (ATF) prices since 2019.
Costs rose from 68,050 rupees ($759) per kilolitre in cities like Delhi in January 2019 to 93,766 rupees ($1,046) per kilolitre in October 2025. Airways are additionally recovering pandemic-era losses, additional pushing fares up.
And although there isn’t any complete research capturing fare developments in 2025, but, consultants say costs have continued to rise all year long.
“Regardless of the large surge already, airfares aren’t coming down and are solely going up,” stated Vandana Singh, the chairperson of the Aviation Cargo Federation of Aviation Business in India (FAII), a government-recognised physique that promotes India’s aviation sector.
“The relentless improve in airfare doesn’t mirror nicely on the accessibility of aviation in India,” Singh added, cautioning that the center and economically weaker sections of society might quickly discover themselves excluded from the air journey panorama altogether.
‘Hole catchphrase’
In October 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched what his authorities has referred to as the UDAN scheme – “Udan” means “flight” in Hindi, however the acronym stands for Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (Let the Widespread Citizen Fly). The said purpose of the scheme was to dramatically increase India’s aviation infrastructure, and open up dozens of latest routes to make air journey accessible to lower-income Indians and folks in smaller cities and cities.
Whereas flagging off the primary flight underneath the scheme in April 2017, Modi stated, “I need to see individuals who put on hawai chappals [flip-flops] flying in a hawai jahaaz [aeroplane].”
His feedback successfully turned a slogan for the marketing campaign, touted as the federal government’s bid to make flying reasonably priced and accessible for thousands and thousands of individuals from small-town India, a lot of whom can not even afford footwear.
However that slogan now carries a tinge of irony, Singh stated.
“With fares escalating constantly over the previous few years, this inspiring slogan now dangers turning into a hole catchphrase reasonably than a lived actuality.”
Beneath the Modi authorities, India has certainly witnessed a speedy growth within the variety of cities and cities linked by air, with airports greater than doubling from 74 in 2014, when Modi got here to energy, to 157 in 2024.
However the numbers masks a deeper disaster that afflicts Indian aviation, consultants say. As a result of the variety of flights and routes has gone up, the overall quantity of travellers in India has remained excessive, even when hovering costs imply that many particular person passengers are decreasing air journey.
The nation is the world’s third-largest home aviation market, and witnessed a 15 p.c improve in air passengers, year-on-year, within the 2024 monetary 12 months, based on authorities figures.
Nonetheless, indicators of turbulence are seen, even within the information. Home air site visitors dipped to 12.6 million passengers in July 2025, in contrast with 13.1 million in June 2025. The numbers recovered in August to 13.2 million, however then dipped once more in September (12.6 million), earlier than rising in October to 14.3 million passengers.
Rohit Kumar, an aviation economist and a college member at Rajiv Gandhi Nationwide Aviation College, stated that whereas passenger numbers haven’t fallen, “the rise in fares has quietly pushed the decrease and lower-middle courses out of the skies”. New airports, extra routes, and upper-middle-class travellers, who worth time over price, are persevering with to maintain whole passenger numbers up.
Kumar added that the distant working tradition that many expertise and service-driven industries in India have continued to embrace for the reason that pandemic has allowed workers to journey extra steadily than earlier than. This has boosted occasional air journey amongst higher-income professionals, he stated.
Nonetheless, regardless of year-on-year progress, the sector stays deeply unequal. India’s aviation sector, Kumar cautioned, is being carried by a small, prosperous part, whereas the overwhelming majority – rising flyers that the UDAN scheme was meant to serve – are more and more being left behind.
Singh of the FAII was much more blunt.
“The very folks the [Modi] slogan referred to, those that put on chappals, are actually being priced out of the skies,” she stated.
‘Monopolistic developments’
Extra routes are usually not the one issue permitting airways to maintain elevating fares, even when they’re pricing out many passengers. They’re additionally helped by shrinking competitors.
In recent times, a number of main airways have shut down, whereas others have merged after acquisitions.
Go First, which as soon as held greater than 10 p.c of India’s home and worldwide market, with 52 plane, ceased operations in Might 2023 after submitting for chapter. Jet Airways, with a 21 p.c market share and 124 plane at its 2016 peak, halted operations in 2019.
SpiceJet teetered on the sting of insolvency, particularly between 2022 and 2024, as a result of mounting debt, authorized points, and grounded plane. In July 2022, the Directorate Common of Civil Aviation (DGCA), India’s aviation regulator, reduce SpiceJet operations by 50 p.c. The DGCA cited “poor inside security oversight and insufficient upkeep actions”. SpiceJet additionally confronted vital delays, with a reported on-time efficiency (OTP) of 54.8 p.c in January 2025, making it the least punctual airline amongst main carriers on the time.
Defaults on lease funds additionally led to plane repossessions, shrinking SpiceJet’s fleet from 118 in 2019 to simply 28 operational planes by January 2025.
“The back-to-back shutdown of airways in India severely impacted air journey, paving the best way for monopolistic developments,” stated Singh. With fewer gamers within the skies, dominant airways can dictate costs and lift them at their discretion, she added.
In one other main shake-up, Air India, India’s solely public sector airline, was officially privatised in January 2022, when the Tata Group took over full possession.
Following this, Vistara, an airline already collectively owned by Tata and Singapore Airways, was merged with Air India in November 2024. The merger raised issues and confronted robust opposition from critics, together with commerce unions and opposition events, who feared that the consolidation of Air India, Vistara, and AirAsia India – one other Tata Group subsidiary additionally merged with the opposite two – would result in an aviation oligopoly, decreasing competitors and shopper selection within the Indian market.
Zuhaib Rashid, an economics and analysis affiliate on the Isaac Centre for Public Coverage, New Delhi, stated the merger handed over management of India’s skies to simply two personal gamers, posing a critical risk to competitors.
The one different main aviation participant in India at present is Indigo, which has 61 p.c market share. Collectively, IndiGo and Air India now management 91 p.c of India’s airline market.
Rashid argued that, had the federal government retained a stake in Air India, it may have ensured fare regulation. “Totally privatising airways has decreased authorities management over pricing, and has allowed personal gamers to dominate in a rustic the place air journey stays a luxurious,” he added.
Their dominance of the market additionally permits Air India and Indigo to jack up costs dramatically throughout peak journey seasons or emergencies, tour operators and consultants say, citing two current examples.
Sajad Ismail Sofi, a Srinagar-based air journey agent, pointed to the aftermath of the lethal April assault on vacationers in Pahalgam, a preferred resort city in Indian-administered Kashmir, during which 26 civilians had been killed. As vacationers in different components of Kashmir scrambled to depart the area, one-way ticket costs from Srinagar to different components of India skyrocketed from 5,000 rupees ($56) to almost 12,000 rupees ($135).
After airways confronted main criticism and accusations of profiteering from a nationwide disaster, costs got here down.
Earlier within the 12 months, Singh from the FAII recalled, one-way airfares from India’s monetary capital, Mumbai, to the temple city of Prayagraj soared to 50,000 rupees ($564) – costlier than flights to Paris – through the Mahakumbh Mela, one in all Hinduism’s most sacred occasions during which devotees take dips within the Ganga river. The federal government ultimately stepped in to stress airways to curb costs. Nonetheless, Singh stated that the majority pilgrims had already purchased their tickets by then.
Al Jazeera has sought responses from Indigo and Air India to the criticism and allegations of utilizing their market dominance to cost exorbitant charges. Neither airline has responded.
Larger taxes including to the burden
Consultants level out that airways alone are usually not chargeable for the rising fares. India’s excessive aviation taxes are a key issue too.
The nation imposes the best taxes on aviation turbine gas (ATF) in Asia, which account for 45 p.c of air ticket costs. By mid-2024, jet gas costs in cities like Delhi and Mumbai had been practically 60 p.c greater than in world hubs like Dubai, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur, largely as a result of value-added taxes (VAT), central excise duties and extra cesses.
Passengers are additionally charged, as a part of their tickets, a consumer improvement charge, starting from 150 rupees ($1.7) to 400 rupees ($4.5) relying on the airport; a passenger service charge of about 150 rupees ($1.7); an aviation safety charge of 200 rupees ($2.3) per passenger; a terminal charge of 100 rupees ($1.2); and a regional connectivity cost between 50 rupees ($0.6) and 100 rupees ($1.2) per passenger. Every of those quantities is small, however collectively, they add up. And they don’t go to the airline, however to the airport or the federal government.
In June, the Worldwide Air Transport Affiliation (IATA), which represents greater than 350 airways globally, referred to as for better readability in India’s taxation system, arguing that it was too advanced.
Amjad Ali, a journey operator from New Delhi, stated he had been within the air ticketing enterprise since 2005, and had by no means witnessed a pointy rise in airfares till 2020. “Fares used to extend regularly, however since 2020, they’ve shot up quickly,” he stated.
Ali often books tickets on routes like Delhi–Mumbai, Delhi–Patna, and Delhi–Purnea. Patna and Purnea are cities within the japanese Indian state of Bihar.
He stated that new airports, reminiscent of Purnea, have introduced in additional passengers as a result of introduction of latest routes. Earlier than the pandemic, a Mumbai–Delhi ticket, booked nicely prematurely, used to price about 3,800 rupees ($43), however now, it’s onerous to seek out one under 6,000 rupees ($68) for a similar journey.
In the meantime, airways have additionally began slicing reductions they used to supply to some sections of flyers. Beforehand, Air India provided a 50 p.c concession on the bottom fare for home pupil journey, however after privatisation, this was decreased to solely 10 p.c.
The outcome, Ali stated, is a noticeable decline in pupil travellers. “We not often see college students flying today,” he stated.
Finally, Singh from the FAII stated, the trade was taking pictures itself within the foot by making flying unaffordable for thousands and thousands of Indians.
“If we wish air journey to grow to be actually accessible to a bigger part of the inhabitants, notably these with restricted monetary means, the federal government and aviation stakeholders should work in the direction of decreasing these taxes and surcharges,” she stated.
Till then, a airplane journey will stay a flight of fancy for many of India’s 1.4 billion folks.
