Winter is coming, and more flights will be taking off this year

Skies are set to get busier this winter as four of the country's major airlines prepare to significantly boost flight departures, capitalizing on increased aircraft deliveries and a positive demand outlook for the peak travel season.

Four of the five leading airlines will be adding flights during the upcoming five-month winter schedule, beginning 26 October 2025 and ending 28 March 2026. The increase is led by SpiceJet, which is expected to see an over 20% increase over the preceding 12-month period, apart from India's largest airline IndiGo (9.66%), Air India Express (12%) and Akasa Air (3.84%). Spicejet's jump is in part due to its low base of last year.

Increased aircraft deliveries, un-grounding of aircraft, opening of new routes and a better demand outlook have prompted operators to fly more during the winter, traditionally the peak season for air travel, as holidays and the wedding season coincide.

However, Air India (including Vistara) will see a 10.50% decline in weekly departures from last year's 4779 to 4277 now.

Overall increase

Put together, departures across airlines will be up nearly 6%, to 26495 per week, over the winter schedule of 2024 when there were 25,007 weekly departures. The regulator has approved the winter schedule, civil aviation ministry said in a statement. Out of the 126 airports from which flights will take off this winter, Amravati, Hissar, Purnia and Rupsi are new airports proposed by airlines, while operations from Aligarh, Moradabad, Chitrakoot, Bhavnagar, Ludhiana, Pakyong and Shravasti have been suspended for the season.

Compared to the summer schedule, winter departures are 4% higher. The summer schedule covers nearly seven months from 28 March to 25 October. The summer schedule had 25,610 departures per week from 129 airports.

Despite an increase in departures, this may not actually lead to lower fares, an aviation analyst said on the condition of anonymity. In fact, the probability of a fare hike cannot be ruled out.

“Typically, departures or growth are pegged at 1.2-1.5 times the GDP, which is expected to grow at 6%. So, winter schedule departures are still a few percentage points lower, which indicates temporary supply issues that may lead to an increase in fares for passengers. Considering new airports coming up, like Navi Mumbai and Jewar, the departure schedule looks somewhat moderated,” the Delhi-based analyst said, requesting anonymity.

Traffic

During the January-August period, passenger traffic touched 111 million, up 4.99% from the same period in the previous year, DGCA data showed. July and August witnessed passenger traffic falling 3% and 1.40% respectively over the comparable period last year.

Ratings agency Icra on 30 September revised its projection for the growth of overall air passenger traffic in FY26 to 5-7% to reach 430-440 million. It had previously projected a 7-9% growth in traffic over FY25’s 412 million. The downward revision is a result of the cross-border tensions and lower aircraft availability owing to fleet inspections, post the fatal aircraft crash in June 2025, that compressed passenger traffic growth during April-August FY26. The 5-7% growth in FY26 is likely to be the lowest since the covid pandemic, it said.

“The moderate growth will be supported by strong expansion in international travel amid improving connectivity to newer destinations, continued uptick in leisure and business travel in the domestic segment and start of operations of new greenfield airports in H2 FY2026,” it said.

Approved departures

As per the winter schedule, IndiGo will continue to have the highest weekly departures at 15,014. Air India Express will see weekly departures increase to 3,171, up from 2,832 in Winter 2024.

SpiceJet’s departures will increase substantially from last year's 1,297 to 1,568 this year, aided in part by the low base of last year. A Spicejet official said the increase is in line with the airline's ongoing expansion strategy, which includes induction of new aircraft to boost its operational capacity. With a significantly larger fleet size, SpiceJet aims to enter new domestic and international destinations.

Earlier this month, SpiceJet announced the induction of three new aircraft. This marked the beginning of an aggressive fleet expansion ahead of the winter travel season. The expansion is part of a broader plan to add 20 more aircraft between October and November 2025 and the restoration of four previously grounded planes by mid-December.

Scaling up

“The airline is strategically scaling up its operations this winter and is on track to more than double its operational fleet size and triple its available seat kilometers (ASKM) by introducing new routes, increasing flight frequencies, and adding exciting destinations across its network,” a spokesperson from the airlines said.

Akasa Air is also witnessing an increase in departures to 1027 per week this winter. In the winter schedule 2024 its weekly departures were at 989.

The airline had earlier this month mentioned that Delhi had emerged as its third operational base, after Mumbai and Bengaluru, with total departures from Delhi expected to increase by 56% (for Winter 2025) as compared to Winter 2024. The airline will now operate over 165 weekly departures from the national capital, connecting it with 12 destinations, up from nine previously.

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, respectively.