Only Russia is Holding India Back

Air India

When I looked at the Chinese market, one of the comments asked me to do a similar look at India. I’m happy to oblige. And really, this was a fascinating dive. I hadn’t thought about India nearly as much as I had China. The changes aren’t quite as dramatic, but they are clear. Indian demand just keeps growing. The problem is its pesky neighbor to the north is making it hard for the country to reach its full potential, at least on long-haul.

The US Market Has One Problem

Let’s start off with a look at US-India specifically. Thanks to the distance involved, there’s nonstop, and there’s flying through a third country. I broke that out in the following chart, because I think it’s important to differentiate.

Seats by Month From US to India

Data via Cirium

What we see here is that up until 2007, there wasn’t much nonstop service, but what existed was operated by the US carriers. Air India ran everything through Europe until then when it finally began flying nonstop. That was the same time that Jet Airways started flying to the US with a stop, so the race was on.

The initial surge of capacity that came in 2007/2008 was quickly dismantled. It was too premature. And capacity continued to decline for nearly a decade.

Delta abandoned nonstop flights in 2009, only operating via Amsterdam until it tried the nonstop again right before the pandemic shut it down. It still hasn’t returned. American, meanwhile, shut its flight down in 2012, leaving United as the only US carrier flying nonstop to India.

In 2016, Jet Airways left the US, only to shut down two years later. That was when the market hit bottom. After that, things had started to improve steadily, but then the pandemic hit.

What’s pretty remarkable here is how quickly India flying came back after the pandemic, and then how quickly it surged ahead. This was no bubble. India was a popular market for visiting friends and relatives, and people were willing to travel. United in particular was looking for any long-haul opportunity with demand, and it expanded fast with flights to Delhi from Chicago/O’Hare, Newark, and San Francisco along with Newark to Mumbai. It wasn’t all United; American started JFK – Delhi in 2021.

But then, the Russians invaded Ukraine, and the whole thing fell apart.

Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper – copyright © Karl L. Swartz.

When the Russians shut their airspace off to US and European airlines, it had a devastating impact on the profitability and in some cases the possibility of flights to India. United was hit hardest, and it abandoned all of its flights — including the announced-but-not-flown San Francisco – Bangalore flight — with the exception of Newark – Delhi.

It may seem odd that Newark – Delhi could fly while Newark – Mumbai could not based on the map above, but do keep in mind that Mumbai is further by about 500 miles as the crow flies, so that makes a difference. Also, the winds demand that flights don’t always take the great circle path anyway. As I understand it, that flight just doesn’t work without access to Russian airspace.

What’s one airline’s problem, however, is another’s opportunity. Air India had no such prohibition on flying over Russia, so it stepped up demand when the US airlines could not.

The airline had suspended it’s 1-2x weekly flight from SFO to Bangalore when the invasion happened, but by December it had returned with 3x weekly. It began 4x weekly from SFO to Mumbai at the same time. JFK – Mumbai came online in early 2023, and Newark – Delhi — which had been at 4x weekly before the invasion — recently went up to 5x weekly.

Air India is dominating the market, and it has more than doubled seats in the last decade. It will continue to have that nonstop market almost entirely to itself until Russian airspace opens up to US-based carriers.

The Rest of the World

This is a US-focused site more than anything else, so it stands to reason that I’d start with US flying. But that is a true drop in the bucket compared to other parts of the world. Take a look.

Seats from India by Month and Destination Continent

Data via Cirium

While North America sits down at the bottom of the pile, it’s the Middle East which has absolutely exploded. In 2005, the Middle East – India was about 25 percent larger than the European market. Now, it’s more than 250 percent larger.

Why? There are a lot of reasons. First, there is huge local traffic between India and the Middle East thanks to the countless workers who go from India to places like Dubai to earn a paycheck they can send home to family. But it’s also the mega-hubs in Dubai and Doha that provide enormous amounts of connecting traffic. This is the most important market for India and, I would argue, for the Middle East airlines as well.

It’s also noticeable that Southeast Asia has surged ahead. This is really the triumvirate of Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore. Europe, meanwhile, has stagnated in comparison, but it is still at a high point despite Russian overflight restrictions.

The only market that’s really suffering mightily? It’s China. In fact, if you thought flying from the US to China was tough, you haven’t looked at India. There are currently… checks notes… ZERO flights scheduled between the two most populous countries on earth. That is staggering.

This is a diplomatic spat above all, but it sounds like things are starting to thaw and we may see the resumption of nonstops again soon enough. But for now, it’s still a flat line.

The Domestic Market Soars

The last market I want to take a look at is the domestic one. If you want to see a growth story, this is it.

Domestic India Seats by Airline By Month

Data via Cirium

Up until 2011, it was Indian Airlines and Jet Airways that were the biggest competitors in the market. That year, Air India and Indian Airlines merged in what can only be considered a terrible mess of a merger. But once Air India took over, the combined airline just watched as other airlines ate its lunch.

The biggest and most impressive competitor of all is IndiGo which right around 2011 surged to be the largest domestic airline. Today, it’s not even close.

IndiGo’s position was helped when Kingfisher disappeared in 2012, Jet Airways failed in 2019, and Go First imploded in 2023. SpiceJet did try to step in and grow quickly at that point, but it has almost died time and time again. It is no longer an important player.

Air India has regained some strength now that it’s owned by Tata. That company has worked to combine all of the ridiculous subsidiaries into something more coherent. Vistara was folded into Air India. AirAsia India was folded into Air India Express. They’re all now under a single corporate banner under Air India, competing primarily with IndiGo, the remains of SpiceJet and upstart Akasa Air.

During this time, monthly seats have grown from a little over 2 million to more than 17 million. The market should only keep growing.


India continues to grow in importance on the world stage, and it has barely scratched the surface of its potential to support more air travel. If geopolitical issues cleared up, that would just accelerate the process. Either way, India will be one of the more important travel markets to watch.

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24 comments on “Only Russia is Holding India Back

  1. Good stuff Brett. Your analysis shows just how fast air markets can change.

    One wonders how this will develop when the Russia-Ukraine war ends, and a president friendly to Russia takes office here.

  2. The Indian government has refused to expand bilaterals with many countries to protect flag carrier Air India. Many complaints from Sir Tim Clark of Emirates about this.

    That is a very big barrier for future capacity increases.

    1. Tying in with my other comment about how the Russian airspace issue might be resolved soon, one area of growth may be the alliance between Indigo and American. One could AA starting a code-share flight from Chicago or DFW for this alliance.

      The issue that American faces is this. The Indian expat market to the Middle East is enormous, but the average pax doesn’t have a ton of money to spend. This similar to the expat Mexican market here. These people are generally lower-end workers in construction or agriculture. So they aren’t spending a ton.

      But the expat market for Indians in the US is a little different. The average person of Indian ancestry here is more prosperous, lots of doctors and engineers. They can afford flights home, but might not enjoy connecting to the Indian version of Ryanair. Not the best fit. These folks, and they are smaller in numbers than all the expat Indians in the Middle East, would be a more natural fit on Air India at home.

      Plus there is already a ton of capacity through Doha and Dubai. Between them they have 29 nonstops a day from the US, and they all connect to lots of middle size Indian cities. It’s significant competition to the Indian carriers.

      1. One thing to add, long-term demographics favor India as they have a far younger population compared to China. China is beginning to feel the impact of the one child policy witch will cause there population to shrink rapidly in the coming decades.

      2. Worth pointing out that IndiGo has announced plans for both a long-haul and a short-haul business/first (whatever terms you want to use) product. The product is just barely starting to roll out, and I can’t remember if it will truly be fleet-wide, but it’s a start. Assuming they see a good return it could proliferate further. This is basically the same as the US3’s domestic first class so would mesh just fine coming off a long-haul business class flight.

  3. What happened in India T-Pac service in 2Q12? Looks like it dropped to near zilch. I don’t remember a war or anything going on… SARS? Swine Flu?

  4. more great analysis from CF.

    One person’s loss is another’s gain – and that is why US carrier challenges w/ serving S. Asia have become other carriers’ opportunities.
    The Middle East carriers clearly stand to gain but so too should European carriers. While they have to navigate airspace restrictions, the increased distance is not as surmountable. AC does fly to India nonstop DEL-YYZ but uses the gas-guzzling 777LR but makes a stop coming back for BOM with a 787.

    The real question for the future is what will change. If the Russia-Ukraine war comes to a close, there might be a reset of western-Russian relations but that still doesn’t mean that western governments want the possibility of hundreds of their citizens being in the hands of a foreign government which still might not have good relations.

    Let’s also not forget that SQ overflies India on its routes from NYC to SIN using A350ULRs that are less capable that current versions that Airbus is rolling out of its factories; the further distance to SIN and the reduced payload says there is some combination of Airbus capabilities and the N. America-India market that can be served.

    And the impact of Russian airspace closures is not impacting just India. The elimination of all UA flying from the eastern US to E. Asia except for Tokyo shows how much geopolitical instability can impact the competitive environment. In addition to Indian and Chinese airlines, some CX flights do not respect Russian airspace restrictions so those carriers can do what US and Canadian carriers cannot do. Taiwanese and S. Korean carriers are doing as well as they are because their hubs are just inside the range of what current aircraft can do from all points in the U.S.

  5. One person’s opinion and circumstances vary but if you’re going to either tier 1 city (Mumbai or Delhi) or many of the tier 2s (Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore etc), I think it’s insane to not connect through Europe. Two 8 hour flights is so much better than a 3 and 12 hour flight IMO. I do wonder what we’ll see once European service to tier 2 and 3 Indian cities becomes commonplace.

    1. BLR gets quite a bit of Europe flights and I think MAA too. I’m just patiently waiting for more AMD service. AI used to run LHR-AMD 3x a week, but would never code share it to UA or AC for optimal travel convenience.

      AMD has now moved to LGW :(

    1. Not sure who you want to answer but my guess involves the following:
      1. Just because AA and UA serve a route or country does not mean that it meets DL’s profit requirements. UA has not been able to sustain even a 2nd EWR-DEL route, the only India route it is operating. AA has switched from its high CASM 777-300ER to the 787-9 and intends to put the new premium config on their JFK-DEL, likely indicating they were payload restricting their current model.
      2. DL used the 777LR which could fly as far as ATL-BOM w/o Russia airspace restrictions; that route was longer than AA and UA’s DEL-NYC flights with Russia airspace restrictions.
      3. DL got rid of the LR because of its low fuel efficiency (like the 777-200ER) and knew that Airbus was working on enhancements to the A350 that would give that model the range to do what DL needed.
      4. DL now has enough A350-900s including the most recent and capable models so should be able to do routes that are consistently 17 hours long in the air – because other operators such as SQ do that even with 250 seats.
      5. DL has long had a preference for BOM over DEL which means even longer flights.
      6. DL has to assume that Air India will still have access to Russia airspace so will have to win a revenue premium and have favorable costs. The A350-1000 is probably the only aircraft that has the cost economics and the capabilities to serve India not just from NYC but potentially deeper into the US where there are undoubtedly much greater revenue generating opportunities.
      7. DL has waited years for approval of the KE-OZ merger which is now here and I expect they will lean into growing ICN as part of the JV and then fill out their network elsewhere in E. Asia.

      DL might get its first A350-1000s in 2025 by picking up some of VS’ orders although they haven’t confirmed that. By the summer of 2026, when DL’s own 35K orders should be delivered, if we don’t see DL back in India as well as deeper in the Pacific Rim, they probably won’t. But I’m guessing they will be back in S. Asia and deeper in E. Asia.

      1. I think you are trying to tie too many unrelated events to each other and to Delta operation in India:

        1) 2nd EWRDEL was successful until the whole Russia invasion. Understandably hard to compete when AI is both cheaper and faster
        2) If United can fly EWRDEL, then Delta could at least fly JFKDEL? or maybe the A359 is just not as powerful as the 777LR or the United 789??? Hmmm maybe they made the wrong call with fleet…

        3) Delta got rid of the 777LR (and the entire 777 fleet) due to Covid. They even had just upgraded them to D1, so means they intended to invest and keep them for longer. The 777LR went to Air India and now being used for US-India flights
        5) The preference is from olden days when they had the partnership with Jet Airways. Not having any partner is the main reason they aren’t flying to India, not because BOM is further than DEL. A Delta DEL flight would open up so many Indian Delta fliers…
        7) KE-OZ merger will have little impact on India. Maybe a little just because Delta has no operation in India, but no one will fly from the US to Korea to India, when there are faster options via the US, Canada, Europe and Middle East

        1. nice numbering….

          Obviously, there is a whole lot that we can say changed because of covid… the point is what works now and what can work in the future.

          UA is flying one India flight/day NYC-DEL, same as AA.

          Covid and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine didn’t happen at the same time. DL also retired other aircraft -some of which it has and is reactivating but DL expected the combined impact to make a difference long-term.

          BOM is the financial center of India, just as Shanghai is for China. DL has always shown more of a preference for the financial centers of countries more than for the political centers which aligns with their hub in NYC.

          Even though DL will take delivery of 25 new Airbus widebodies in 2024-25, they still do not have unlimited capacity to expand. Adding capacity as part of the KE JV will very likely take priority over other international growth just because it will likely be higher yielding.

          And, as long as Russia airspace restrictions are in place, flying from the west coast to India via NE Asia is an option, although there isn’t a lot of service.

          I still think that DL will restart India with the A350-1000 and do so on routes that other airlines cannot serve – and get a revenue premium as a result – because of the better capabilities of the A350 family and the better economics of the 35K.

          btw, DL actually carries comparable amounts of India traffic via its European JV partners as AA and UA do.

    2. A lot of fluff in Tim Dunns answer… But I really think it boils down to they have no real partner in India to connect pax beyond DEL or BOM.

      A359 can easily do the route, and they even have the longer range version, they just cannot compete with coverage across the whole of India. UA/AC/LH have AI (with Vistara). AA is tied up with Indigo. The biggest players are out of the game. DL bet all their eggs on Jet Airways, even loaning a few executives over to run the airline, but it wasn’t enough.

      I’ll also respond directly to Tim Dunn as he tries to tie unrelated events together imo

      1. 1. DL has said it is starting a relationship with Indigo which does not exclusively partner with airlines of any alliance
        2. Mumbai is getting a new airport in 2025 but DL still might serve BOM and the 35K might or might not be capable of making the flight to the US.

        rather than fixate on what DL will do when it is very likely based on exec statements that they will serve India again, the real question is how much AA and UA service there will be and if DL might suddenly take the lead in the market by virtue of using the largest aircraft and potentially being able to serve markets that AA and UA cannot.

  6. The restrictions on Russian airspace have gifted an effective monopoly on nonstop US-India flights to Air India. It’s a great business, and a better-managed airline would be taking full advantage. If one of their domestic competitors builds a full long-haul operation, they could potentially claim a lot of market share.

    The various airspace restrictions have also been a major benefit to the ME3 and Turkish Airlines. If you fill in the map with the other major airspace restrictions (Ukraine, Iran, Afghanistan), then you’ll see that IST, DUB, DOH, and AUH are in strategic along the flight path between the US/Europe and South Asia. IST is directly along the route that goes over the Black Sea, Caucasus Mountains, and Caspian Sea, while the ME3 airports are at the “corner” of flight routes that go “around” Iran to the south. These bottlenecks make great locations for scissor hubs.

    I think it makes sense for the US-based airlines to mostly sit this competition out. They are handicapped in their ability to compete with Air India on nonstops, and the market for one-stop itineraries is extremely competitive, and served by literally dozens of airlines. The current approach of selling one-stop itineraries via their trans-Atlantic JV partners seems reasonable, both from a revenue and passenger experience perspective.

  7. It’s fascinating to observe that Indigo has established a stronger domestic presence, while Air India excels internationally. What strategies might be driving Indigo’s domestic success that Air India is missing out on?

    Furthermore, it seems that seat occupancy has returned to pre-pandemic levels. However, Indigo is managing to fill more seats, whereas SpiceJet is still struggling to regain its pre-pandemic footing.

    Another though that comes to my mind is that people tend to book through third party apps more than airlines own website due to deals and Indigo tops on most of the searches in terms of price, wonder if that is what is working for Indigo.

    1. I’ve truly always found Indigo better with:

      Schedule (Much more frequency on flights to find the perfect time)
      Cheaper (Never seen a cheaper AI flight unless booking with UA points)
      Nice (Planes are clean and relatively well kept)
      Reliable (a bit controversial, but never had a delay myself)
      Modern (you said it perfectly, much more app and customer service focused)

    2. Soniya – I don’t think it’s anything different than the usual thing that happens when a legacy carrier is disrupted. Air India never cared about the domestic market. When it inherited the Indian Airlines network, it had to pay attention but it was still not focused on how to actually cater to passengers. IndiGo came in and saw the opportunity and had no trouble at all leaving Air India in the dust.

  8. BOM flights are also tough because there are strict takeoff restrictions last I remember. It was something about too many billboards/buildings near the takeoff path, so planes have to use a higher and faster takeoff path. This all requires more fuel, just like the extra 500 miles you mentioned and the Russian airspace closure.

  9. I’m surprised others haven’t mentioned it, but DL is actually the top US carrier from North America to India with a 4.3% share (YE Sept 2024). UA has 3.5%, and AA 3.2%. AI has 21.6% and ME3 has 33.9%

    Say what?

    DL leverages its partners’ metal really well. 9.7% of the passengers on VS’s flights to India are DL passengers. 25.6% of passengers on AF to India are DL passengers. 24.5% of passengers on KL to India are DL passengers.

    By comparison, only 4.8% of passengers on BA to India are AA passengers and just 2.0% of passengers on LH are UA passengers.

    There’s really no reason for DL to put its own metal into India.

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