Escalating tensions across West Asia have begun to strain the operations and finances of India’s top airlines, including IndiGo, the Air India group, Akasa Air, and SpiceJet, with experts estimating that airspace disruptions could result in revenue losses of around ₹500 crore for carriers.
In a tweet on Saturday, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said Indian airlines cancelled around 410 flights on 28 February and 440 on 1 March due to security concerns in parts of the Middle East airspace, impacting Gulf and long-haul routes beyond the region, including services to London Heathrow and Canada.
West Asia accounts for 15-20% of IndiGo’s daily revenue, according to at least one sell-side analyst. “Flight cancellations due to the West Asia crisis will have an impact on airline revenues. Any sustained disruption, especially on international routes, directly affects volumes," said Gagan Dixit, senior vice-president oil and gas and aviation at Elara Securities.
"IndiGo's roughly 30% of its capacity share is international operations, and two-thirds of this is linked to the Middle East. So the airline has meaningful exposure to the region, around 15-20% of daily revenue is exposed,” he added.
“AIX is also heavily exposed to West Asia, but it is difficult to quantify the impact as it is privately held and does not disclose financials,” said Dixit.
Experts said the disruption could translate into losses of ₹500 crore or more after factoring in lost ticket sales, passenger refunds, and rescheduling costs, even as additional expenses from longer flight routings push operating costs higher.
“A ballpark calculation suggests a ₹40,000 round-trip ticket cost, about 450 flight cancellations and roughly 200 seats per flight. This comes to approximately ₹500 crore in direct revenue loss for carriers,” said Mark D. Martin, aviation expert and founder of Gurugram-based Martin Consulting.
With a direct impact of ₹500 crore, there could be a much larger impact due to a potential jump in oil prices, which could hurt the airline’s earnings.
Losses are expected to rise further as airlines operating Gulf routes from northern India face longer flying times due to continued restrictions over Pakistani airspace. “This means carrying more fuel and reduced cargo capacity, which will have a further impact on earnings,” Martin said.
In an advisory issued on 28 February, the DGCA flagged a “significant escalation in security risks” for civil aviation, citing a safety bulletin issued by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency following recent US and Israeli military strikes inside Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory measures. Airlines were advised to avoid operating across eleven Flight Information Regions, including Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Oman, until at least 2 March.
A vital corridor
The disruption has hit a corridor central to Indian airlines’ international business.
IndiGo, the country’s largest airline by market share, operates around 300 weekly flights to West Asia, while Air India Express runs nearly 335 weekly services to Gulf destinations, making it the largest Indian operator in the region. The Air India group operates at least another 100 weekly flights through its full-service international network.
“Due to the ongoing situation in the Middle East, all Akasa Air flights to and from Abu Dhabi, Doha, Jeddah, Kuwait, and Riyadh have been suspended until 2 March 2026,” Akasa Air said in a tweet.
IndiGo had announced, in January, a cutback on Central Asian routes such as Baku, Almaty, Tashkent, and Tbilisi due to geopolitical considerations. Subsequently, in February, operations to a couple of long-haul European destinations were reduced “due to operational constraints, including airspace restrictions and airport congestion”.
The airline suspended its Delhi-Copenhagen route from 17 February 2026, and reduced frequencies to London Heathrow and Manchester to improve schedule reliability and manage tight wide-body aircraft capacity. In all, the effect was a reduction of 30 weekly departures from India across these destinations (or a 2%-odd cut to its international departure schedule).
On 28 February, Air India Express suspended all 55 of its daily West Asia departures, an AIX official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It impacts profitability significantly as nearly half our operations are international, largely driven by the Middle East. The disruption also affects aircraft utilization and crew deployment,” the official said. An additional ₹10,000 per passenger is expected for hotels, parking and rescheduling. The revenue hit extends beyond ticket sales to cargo losses, higher fuel and operating costs, they said.
Air India does not disclose detailed revenue data beyond annual filings.
As per internal projections reviewed by Mint, Air India Express was expecting to report an operating profit in the second half of 2025-26 for the first time since privatization. The projections were shared with employees during a monthly town hall held at the airline’s Gurugram headquarters in January, attended by chairman Nipun Aggarwal and managing director Aloke Singh.
Full-service carrier Air India operates flights to six West Asian destinations—Dammam, Doha, Dubai, Jeddah, Riyadh, and Tel Aviv—from 13 Indian cities, with around 15 daily departures from India, according to industry sources.
The challenge has been compounded by continued restrictions on Pakistani airspace and on Afghanistan. As a result, carriers are already operating longer westbound routings, and avoiding additional West Asian airspace is forcing even more circuitous flight paths.
An Air India executive, on the condition of anonymity, said these diversions significantly increase fuel burn—the single-largest cost component for airlines—and in some cases may require payload restrictions or technical halts on ultra-long-haul sectors.
IndiGo, Air India group, Akasa Air, and SpiceJet did not respond to Mint’s emailed queries on revenue loss.