The skies will be busier this winter as the country’s four major airlines prepare to significantly increase departures, benefiting from increased aircraft deliveries and a positive demand outlook for the peak travel season.
Four of the five major airlines will add flights during the upcoming five-month winter schedule, starting on 26 October 2025 and ending on 28 March 2026. The increase is led by SpiceJet, which is expected to see more than 20% growth over the previous 12-month period, in addition to India’s largest airline IndiGo (9.66%) and Air3 Akasa.42%) Jump Spicejet is partly due to its low base last year.
Increased aircraft deliveries, the cancellation of aircraft grounding, the opening of new routes and a better demand outlook have prompted operators to fly more in the winter, which is traditionally the peak season for air travel as the holidays and wedding season coincide.
However, Air India (including Vistara) will now see a 10.50% drop in weekly departures from last year’s 4779 to 4277.
Overall increase
Combined, departures across airlines will increase by almost 6% to 26,495 weekly, compared to the winter 2024 schedule of 25,007 weekly departures. The regulator approved the winter schedule, the civil aviation ministry said in a statement. Of the 126 airports to be operated this winter, Amravati, Hissar, Purnia and Rupsi are the new airports proposed by the airlines, while operations from Aligarh, Moradabad, Chitrakoot, Bhavnagar, Ludhiana, Pakyong and Shravasti have been suspended for the season.
Compared to the summer timetable, the winter departures are 4% higher. The summer schedule covers almost seven months from March 28 to October 25. The summer flight schedule had 25,610 weekly departures from 129 airports.
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Despite the increase in departures, this may not actually lead to lower fares, an aviation analyst said on condition of anonymity. In fact, the possibility of fare increases cannot be ruled out.
“Typically, departures or growth is pegged at 1.2-1.5 times GDP, which is expected to grow at 6%. So departures in the winter schedule are still a few percentage points lower, indicating temporary supply issues that may lead to higher prices for passengers. With new airports such as Navi Mumbai and Jewar coming up, the departures schedule looks somewhat subdued,” he said annalynym.
Traffic
During the January-August period, passenger traffic touched 111 million, up 4.99% from the same period last year, DGCA data showed. In July and August, compared to the comparable period last year, passenger traffic decreased by 3% and 1.40%, respectively.
Ratings agency Icra on September 30 revised its projection for total air passenger growth in FY26 to 5-7% to 430-440 million. It had previously forecast a 7-9% increase in traffic over 412 million in FY25. The downward revision is a result of cross-border tensions and lower aircraft availability due to fleet inspections following a fatal plane crash in June 2025, which reduced passenger traffic growth during April and August of FY26. The 5-7% growth in FY26 is likely to be the lowest since the covid pandemic, she said.
“Moderate growth will be supported by strong expansion in international travel as connectivity to newer destinations improves, continued growth in leisure and business travel in the domestic segment and the commencement of operations of new greenfield airports in 2H2026,” the company said.
Approved departures
Under the winter schedule, IndiGo will continue to have the highest weekly departures at 15,014. Air India Express will see an increase in weekly departures to 3,171 from 2,832 in winter 2024.
SpiceJet’s departures will increase substantially from 1,297 last year to 1,568 this year, partly due to last year’s low base. A Spicejet official said the increase is in line with the airline’s ongoing expansion strategy, which includes inducting new aircraft to increase its operational capacity. With a significantly larger fleet size, SpiceJet is aiming to enter new domestic and international destinations.
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Earlier this month, SpiceJet announced the launch of three new aircraft. This marked the beginning of aggressive fleet expansion ahead of the winter travel season. The expansion is part of a wider plan to add 20 more aircraft between October and November 2025 and restore four previously grounded aircraft by mid-December.
Zooming in
“The airline is strategically expanding its operations this winter and is on track to more than double the size of its operational fleet and triple its available seat count (ASKM) by introducing new routes, increasing flight frequency and adding exciting destinations to its network,” an airline spokesperson said.
Akasa Air is also seeing an increase in departures this winter to 1,027 per week. In the 2024 winter schedule, its weekly departures were at 989.
The airline said earlier this month that Delhi has emerged as its third base of operations after Mumbai and Bengaluru, with total departures from Delhi expected to increase by 56% (for winter 2025) compared to winter 2024. The airline will now operate more than 165 weekly departures from the national capital, joining its 12 earlier destinations, which is an increase over the previous nine destinations.
Akasa Air will introduce non-stop services connecting Delhi with three new destinations – Kolkata, Bagdogra and Srinagar – and frequencies to various prominent destinations such as Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru will be increased to four times daily, twice daily and five times daily.
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