IndiGo will deploy the first XLR to Athens Confirms there are 40 on order, will receive nine this year Will replace the damp leased 777s to Istanbul India’s first and only A321XLR landed in Delhi this afternoon, turning a new chapter for IndiGo as it inducts the longest available range in the narrowbody segment available in the world. The airline will deploy the aircraft to Athens from both Delhi and Mumbai with thrice a week service starting January 23, 2026.

As Air India remains on the verge of letting go of the last B77L in its fleet, it is a perfect time to see the history of B777-200 / 200LR with Air India over the last two decades. In January 2006, government owned Air India announced an order for 68 Boeing aircraft comprising 8 B777-200LR, 15 B777-300ER, 27 787-8 Dreamliners and 18 B737-800s.

IndiGo, India’s largest carrier by fleet and market capitalization, is shrinking its turboprop network rapidly this month and beyond. Early this month, Twitter user AviationAll_ posted a thread on the reduced ATR operations of IndiGo, which can be found at this link. I decided to investigate further on what changes the airline is doing and if possible convert the schedule to rotations to understand how many aircraft the airline plans to fly in February.

Highest-ever single-day passenger traffic of 1,75,925 recorded on 29 November 2025 Top international destinations: Dubai, Abu Dhabi, London Heathrow and Singapore Top domestic destinations: Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Hyderabad New routes added during the year included Almaty, Amman, Manchester, Bali (Denpasar), Copenhagen, Krabi, Tbilisi and Fujairah Closing calendar year 2025 on a strong note, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) recorded an overall passenger traffic of around 55.5 million in CY25, marking a steady year of growth alongside multiple operational milestones.

Just before Diwali, IndiGo announced flights to Athens from both Delhi and Mumbai, with thrice weekly services from each city. This was a sure indication that the XLR would be inducted before January 23, 2026. The flight departed from Airbus facility in Hamburg on January 06, 2026 and landed in Delhi with a stop in Abu Dhabi today. The talk of the town obviously being the need of the stop for the XLR.

Landed in India on December 29, 2025 Started commercial operations to Bhubaneshwar from Delhi, operating IX1061 Air India Express, the fully owned subsidiary of Air India, has started commercial operations with its 51st MAX, which is also the first line fit 737-8 MAX aircraft for the airline. Air India Express took delivery of VT-RNT on December 29, 2025. This is the first of the 140 custom-configured Boeing aircraft.

Airlines may continue to crib about slots at London Heathrow and how hard they are to come by, but capacity between UK and India in general and London Heathrow and India in particular has grown in double digits over the last one year. February 2026 will see 160 weekly departures between India and London Heathrow, which is 21 more than last year, an addition of three services a day on an average.

The Delhi – Mumbai sector has made it to the top 10 routes worldwide for another year. As we turn the calendar from 2025 to 2026, here is a look at the top 10 routes in India this January 2026. The Delhi - Mumbai - Delhi route remains the top route in the country by a distance compared to the second busiest which is Delhi - Bengaluru - Delhi.

Yesterday, IndiGo launched flights to Rewa in Madhya Pradesh, with daily services from Indore. The airline is operating the ATR 72-600 aircraft on this route. My mind went back over a decade ago when the airline launched flights to Chandigarh. It launched Chandigarh with thrice daily flights from Mumbai, with each extending to Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai giving a seamless one-stop same aircraft connection.

Air India is withdrawing its Bengaluru - San Francisco and Mumbai - San Francisco services starting March 2026. There has been a lot of speculation around why the Bengaluru - San Francisco and Mumbai - San Francisco routes are being discontinued by Air India. This is the longest route from Bengaluru and the only non-stop to Americas and thus people are up in arms on social media against the move by Air India.

Digi Yatra, the government initiative backed by airport operators has been in the dock for various reasons in the past. From the slow roll out to security, a lot of questions have been raised. However, it turns out that its usage has been increasing since inception, shows data released by the government in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament , in response to a question.

The last few days have been chaotic like never before for IndiGo. This is not the first time that the airline faced pilot shortage. It did in 2019, when it initially blamed the delays and cancellations on a storm impacting its network, later admitting that it has pilot shortage and that it would cut its schedule by 2% for the remainder of the scheduling season.

The ambitious Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) - UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) is set to complete a decade of operationalisation soon. Today, the government released data in Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the parliament which shows that 923 routes were awarded under RCS-UDAN until October 2025, of which only 651 were operationalised but 123 could not complete their exclusive three year term.

It has now been a week since the IndiGo crisis snowballed into unprecedented grounding for the entire network. The largest airline in the country with a 65% market share came on its knees as it was woefully short of pilots to fulfil its committed schedule which the regulator had approved. From Kingfisher to Jet Airways and SpiceJet, the crisis affected thousands because of the size of the airlines.

In February 2023, Vistara inducted its first of four A321LR into its fleet. The induction enabled the airline to start operations to Mauritius from Mumbai, followed by flights to Denpasar, Bali from Delhi in December 2023. Back then, I had termed it as the route of the year and it indeed turned out to be a blockbuster route for the airline.

Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) has overtaken Mumbai’s Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) in Domestic Air Traffic Movements (ATMs) in October 2025, shows data by Airports Authority of India. This is not the first time that it has happened, with March this year also seeing a similar trend, but the footfall numbers between the two airports are now closer than what they were in March.

The busiest air route in India connecting the capital with financial capital will see an unprecedented 60 flights each way this December, as Air India adds another flight between the two cities. Coupled with flights to Hindon from Mumbai and to Navi Mumbai from Delhi, the connectivity between the two cities is even higher. Here are the top 10 routes in India and which airline commands the respective markets…

Last September, Air India sent one of its aircraft (VT-EXN) to Hosur for a refit. This would involve reconfiguration of the aircraft to the new standard three class layout and repainting to the new Air India livery, which was modified with the smudge on the tail being taken away. The refit included new seats, new carpets, curtains and upholstery. The aircraft was expected to re-enter service in December 2024, joining the eight three-class Air India A320neo aircraft that already feature the upgraded cabin interiors and configuration.

Over the last few years Indian aviation has undergone a sea change, with acquisition of Air India by the Tata group, merger of four airlines into two, widebody order placement and wet-leasing widebody aircraft by IndiGo, and a general focus on international operations by almost all carriers. Indian carriers have traditionally missed the international opportunity with over half the market being carried by foreign carriers.

Air India has announced the addition of 174 weekly flights on domestic and short-haul international routes, operated by the A320 family as part of Northern Winter Schedule which begins October 26, 2025. The most notable additions are flights to Kuala Lumpur and Bali which will operate 10x weekly from current daily. Additional flights to Kuala Lumpur are effective November 15, 2025 and help reduce the night halt in Kuala Lumpur on some days of the week.

Kozhikode continues to have the largest international presence of Air India Express Air India Express is back in news and this time for withdrawing flights from points in Kerala. This created an uproar to an extent that Trivandrum MP Shashi Tharoor met senior Air India officials to protest and discuss. As we get closer to the start of Winter schedule 2025, which begins on October 26, 2025, this is a good time to look at what exactly changed for the international network of Air India Express.

SpiceJet has been making multiple announcements over the last few weeks. The airline intends to add up to 20 aircraft as wet/damp leases this winter, which will effectively double up its operations. The fund infusion of INR 3000 crore last financial year was supposed to help the airline speed up the ungrounding and expand fleet, but clearly that has not happened.

IndiGo inducted its first 787-9 dreamliner from Norse Atlantic in March this year, to operate to Bangkok from Delhi. By June, when it announced new destinations like London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Manchester, Athens amongst others, a lot had changed. The ghastly terrorist attack on civilians in April and subsequent Operation Sindoor meant that Pakistani airspace was no longer available and when the flights to…

One of the first things that you see when you visit any airline website is the Booking Engine where you can search for flights, select dates of travel and in some cases class of service along with count of passengers before starting the booking process. The booking engine is completely missing when one visits the website of Riyadh Air, which announced the launch of flights to London Heathrow.