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As international flights open, summer holidays to drive demand

As international flights restart fully from Sunday, airlines are ramping up flights to cater to a high demand for a foreign holiday, which is primarily driven by short–haul destinations in South Asia, South East Asia West Asia and Europe.

Until now, travel to and from India was confined to 37 countries with limited flights under “air bubble” agreements. But from Sunday, six Indian airlines will connect 27 countries and 60 international airlines could provide connectivity to 40 countries. Passengers can also take advantage of cheaper connecting flights to a third country, which was not an option under air bubbles as they allowed only direct travel though some international carriers violated this rule. Nearly 54% of passengers globally take a via flight, according to air travel data provider OAG.

The IndiGo, country’s largest airline in terms of the number of planes and market share, will increase its daily international flights from 80 on Saturday to 120 and gradually climb to pre– COVID number of 170 flights daily. Its flights to Dubai will double from seven per day to 14. The airline’s only destination in Europe, Turkey, is likely to be opened for flights only in May. An airline spokesperson said it will also be opening new destinations.

Vistara will be scaling up its London flights, which it launched during the pandemic along with other long and short–haul destinations, from five in a week to a flight daily by May and will restart flights to Bangkok like most Indian airlines given the mad rush for Thailand — it sees the highest number of travellers from India.

The airlines started flights to Frankfurt, Paris and Tokyo in the past two years and says, “The demand across the network has been encouraging, especially on long–haul routes, and we are exploring possibilities to serve our customer better by adding more flights in the coming months.”