The longest and shortest flights in India this summer every passenger should know

As the Northern Summer Schedule 2025 kicked off on Sunday, March 30, 2025, there were new launches, some shutdowns and a whole spate of network changes across Indian airports and airlines.

While the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has approved 25,610 weekly flights, data shared by Cirium, an aviation analytics company, exclusively for this article, shows 23,234 flights being planned across airlines this April.

The highest number of flights--13,896-- will be operated by IndiGo followed by 3,720 by Air India. Air India Express, which is seeing the maximum growth and has 3375 slots allocated to it, sees 2,715 departures being planned. The slots are typically not utilised from the first day of the season with many flights starting progressively. Air India will continue to operate the longest domestic flight in the country with three weekly operations to Port Blair from Delhi.

The 2481 km long route takes three hours and thirty-five minutes on the way to Port Blair and three hours fifty minutes on the return. Air India deploys the A320 aircraft on this route. The shortest flight in the country is a tie between Diu-Keshod-Diu and Silchar-Imphal-Silchar, both 95 kms and operated by only government-run airline, Alliance Air, with ATR 72-600 operating the routes. The Diu- Keshod-Diu flight operates thrice a week while Silchar-Imphal-Silchar operates twice a week.

How is it for all airlines?

The 2,320 km long route to Srinagar from Bengaluru, is IndiGo’s longest route in India. The airline is deploying the A321neo on this route which also is a Category 2 route under Route Dispersal Guidelines (RDG). The 119-km route to Kozhikode from Kochi, operated by the ATR 72-600 is the shortest route for IndiGo. IndiGo’s shortest narrowbody route is the 145 km long flight between Srinagar and Jammu, which is also the shortest route in the network for Air India Express and SpiceJet, while its longest ATR route is a tie between thrice a week Bhubaneswar - Prayagraj and daily Kolkata-Raipur services.

Air India, the only Airbus operated with a combined fleet post-merger with Vistara has its flight to Dehradun from Delhi as the shortest flight at 214 kms. The airline has progressively shifted many of its sectors and flights to subsidiary Air India Express, whose longest domestic route is the same as IndiGo, the 2,320 km long route to Srinagar from Bengaluru, while its shortest is the Srinagar-Jammu-Srinagar route. SpiceJet, which intends to operationalise 10 aircraft soon, would see its longest route from Bengaluru, to Dehradun at 1,895 kms. The airline also operates the Q400 fleet, with the Q400 fleet seeing its longest flight to Shillong from Delhi, which it operates twice a week and covers 1,508 kms, while the shortest Q400 route is 232 km long flight to Jaipur from Delhi.

The Akasa Air, which is neck to neck with SpiceJet for market share, operates to Guwahati from Mumbai, which is its longest route at 2,074 kms, while the 248 km long Guwahati- Agartala sector is the shortest for the airline. Amongst the regional carriers, Star Air’s flight to Jaipur from Belgaum is the longest and operated by the E145s covering 1220 kms, while Jeypore-Vizag route by IndiaOne on the Cessna 208 is the shortest at 142 km.

IndiGo would be flying to 89 domestic destinations, with Alliance Air coming in next with flights to 51 destinations, a stretch considering its small fleet. Air India is next flying to 45 domestic destinations, while subsidiary Air India Express will fly to 38.

How are the airports doing?

Delhi maintains the leadership with 3,480 weekly departures, while Bengaluru has dethroned Mumbai to reach the number two spot with 2,378 departures. Mumbai has 2,284 weekly departures scheduled. However, Mumbai will continue to have more seats on offer as Bengaluru’s growth is a mix of low capacity ATRs and narrowbody aircraft. Interestingly, Hyderabad and Pune airports see the maximum carriers offering domestic flights in operation at eight carriers each. Both play host to all carriers except FlyBig and IndiaOne.

Of the 119 airports for which the schedules have been announced, a staggering 41 have only one airline, putting them at risk of closure if the airline cannot sustain, especially the regional ones, which have had a history of closing down in India. In seven of the top 10 airports in the country, IndiGo has a frequency share of over 50%.