Category World News

Between New Delhi and Srinagar, the largest city in Indian-administered Kashmir, on frequent flights, Salman Shahid travels. He runs Rise, a private coaching centre for students aspiring to join the Indian Institutes of Technology – the country’s premier engineering schools – in Srinagar, but his family is based in New Delhi.

He saves time by flying. But increasingly, he just cannot afford it.

A one-way flight from Srinagar to New Delhi would cost him roughly 3,300 rupees ($37.20) on average before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Shahid. “Now, the same ticket is over 5, 000 rupees ($56), and that, too, with very limited time options”, he points out.

His travel schedule has been significantly impacted by this 50% increase in airfare. “I don’t travel that frequently now”, he says. I used to travel on at least four round-trips each month, before that. Now, it’s come down to just two”.

He recalls purchasing a ticket on Vistara, a domestic airliner, for only 1,700 rupees (19) during a 2019 sale. “That kind of pricing now feels like a dream”, he says, adding that he struggles to understand how airfare has escalated so sharply in such a short period.

He is not at risk.

According to a study published last November by Airports Council International (ACI), a global trade association representing more than 2, 000 airports in more than 180 countries, India saw a 43 percent rise in domestic airfares in the first half of 2024, compared with 2019, the second-highest in the Asia Pacific and West Asia regions after Vietnam.

Additionally, international prices increased by 16%. India was third in this category. ACI, a management consulting firm with a focus on the aviation and airports sector, in partnership with Flare Aviation Consulting, a study examining 617 airports in the Asia Pacific and West Asia, attributes this increase to high demand, limited competition on some routes, and a 38 percent increase in aviation turbine fuel (ATF) costs since 2019 in a study conducted by ACI in partnership with ACI.

Prices rose from 68, 050 rupees ($759) per kilolitre in cities like Delhi in January 2019 to 93, 766 rupees ($1, 046) per kilolitre in October 2025. Flights are being increased even more as airlines recover from pandemic losses.

And even though there is no comprehensive study capturing fare trends in 2025, yet, experts say prices have continued to rise throughout the year.

The chairperson of the Aviation Cargo Federation of Aviation Industry in India (FAII), a government-recognised organization that promotes India’s aviation sector, said, “Airfares aren’t coming down, they are only going up.”

“The relentless increase in airfare does not reflect well on the accessibility of aviation in India”, Singh added, cautioning that the middle and economically weaker sections of society may soon find themselves excluded from the air travel landscape altogether.

‘ Hollow catchphrase ‘

The UDAN scheme, which the Indian Prime Minister’s government referred to as, was launched in October 2016; the acronym stands for Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (Let the Common Citizen Fly). The term is used in Hindi. The stated aim of the scheme was to dramatically expand India’s aviation infrastructure, and open up dozens of new routes to make air travel accessible to lower-income Indians and people in smaller towns and cities.

In April 2017, Modi flagged off the first flight under the scheme, saying, “I want to see people flying in a hawai jahaaz [airplane].”

His comments effectively became a slogan for the campaign, touted as the government’s bid to make flying affordable and accessible for millions of people from small-town India, many of whom cannot even afford shoes.

However, Singh said that the phrase now has an ironic undertone.

“With fares escalating consistently over the past few years, this inspiring slogan now risks becoming a hollow catchphrase rather than a lived reality”.

India’s airports increased from 74 in 2014, when Modi took office, to 157 in 2024, a rapid increase in the number of cities and towns that are connected by air.

But the numbers mask a deeper crisis that afflicts Indian aviation, experts say. The total number of travelers in India has remained high despite the increasing number of flights and routes, despite the fact that many individual passengers are reducing air travel as a result of the rising prices.

The country is the world’s third-largest domestic aviation market, and witnessed a 15 percent increase in air passengers, year-on-year, in the 2024 financial year, according to government figures.

Even in the data, there are indications of turbulence, despite the data. Domestic air traffic dipped to 12.6 million passengers in July 2025, compared with 13.1 million in June 2025. The figure increased to 13.2 million in August, but it dropped to 14.3 million in October before rising to 14.3 million in October.

Rohit Kumar, an aviation economist and a faculty member at Rajiv Gandhi National Aviation University, said that while passenger numbers have not fallen, “the rise in fares has quietly pushed the lower and lower-middle classes out of the skies”. Upper-middle-class travelers who value time over cost are continuing to increase overall passenger numbers thanks to new airports, expanded routes, and increased airline travel.

Kumar added that the remote working culture that many technology and service-driven industries in India have continued to embrace since the pandemic has allowed employees to travel more frequently than before. He claimed that this has increased higher-income professionals’ sporadic air travel.

However, despite year-on-year growth, the sector remains deeply unequal. Kumar remarked that the majority of India’s aviation sector is being carried by a small, wealthy section, while the majority of new flyers, who were intended to serve by the UDAN scheme, are being left behind.

Singh of the FAII was even more blunt.

She said, “Those who wear chappals, the very people to whom the]Modi] slogan refers are now being priced out of the skies.”

Monopolistic trends: what are they?

More routes are not the only factor allowing airlines to keep raising fares, even if they are pricing out many passengers. They are also helped by reducing competition.

In recent years, several major airlines have shut down, while others have merged after acquisitions.

Go First, which previously held 52 aircraft and more than 10% of India’s domestic and international markets, ceased operations in May 2023 as a result of its bankruptcy filing. Jet Airways, with a 21 percent market share and 124 aircraft at its 2016 peak, halted operations in 2019.

Due to mounting debt, legal issues, and grounded aircraft, SpiceJet teetered on the verge of bankruptcy, especially between 2022 and 2024. In July 2022, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), India’s aviation regulator, cut SpiceJet operations by 50 percent. According to the DGCA, “poor internal safety oversight and inadequate maintenance actions” are to be found. SpiceJet also faced significant delays, with a reported on-time performance (OTP) of 54.8 percent in January 2025, making it the least punctual airline among major carriers at the time.

Due to the lease defaults, SpiceJet’s fleet shrunk from 118 in 2019 to just 28 operational planes by January 2025, which also led to aircraft repossessions.

“The back-to-back shutdown of airlines in India severely impacted air travel, paving the way for monopolistic trends”, said Singh. She continued, “Dominating airlines can dictate prices and raise them at their discretion because there are fewer players in the skies.”

In another major shake-up, Air India, India’s only public sector airline, was officially privatised in January 2022, when the Tata Group took over full ownership.

In November 2024, Vistara, an airline that Tata and Singapore Airlines jointly owned, was combined with Air India. The merger raised concerns and faced strong opposition from critics, including trade unions and opposition parties, who feared that the consolidation of Air India, Vistara, and AirAsia India – another Tata Group subsidiary also merged with the other two – would lead to an aviation oligopoly, reducing competition and consumer choice in the Indian market.

The merger, according to Zuhaib Rashid, an economics and research associate at the Isaac Centre for Public Policy in New Delhi, left only two private players in charge of India’s skies, posing a significant threat to competition.

The only other major aviation player in India today is Indigo, which has 61 percent market share. Today, IndiGo and Air India jointly control 91 percent of the Indian airline industry.

Rashid argued that, had the government retained a stake in Air India, it could have ensured fare regulation. He continued, “Fully privatizing airlines has reduced government control over pricing and allowed private players to rule in a nation where air travel is still a luxury.”

Their dominance of the market also allows Air India and Indigo to jack up prices dramatically&nbsp, during peak travel seasons or emergencies, tour operators and experts say, citing two recent examples.

A Srinagar-based air travel agent, Sajad Ismail Sofi, referred to the aftermath of the deadly April 2014 attack on tourists in Pahalgam, a well-known resort town in Indian-administered Kashmir, which resulted in the deaths of 26 civilians. As tourists in other parts of Kashmir scrambled to leave the region, one-way ticket prices from Srinagar to other parts of India skyrocketed from 5, 000 rupees ($56) to nearly 12, 000 rupees ($135).

Prices dropped after airlines were heavily criticized and accused of profiteering from a national crisis.

Earlier in the year, Singh from the FAII recalled, one-way airfares from India’s financial capital, Mumbai, to the temple town of Prayagraj soared to 50, 000 rupees ($564) – more expensive than flights to Paris – during the Mahakumbh Mela, one of Hinduism’s most sacred events in which devotees take dips in the Ganga river. In the end, the government intervened to impose price controls on airlines. However, Singh said that most pilgrims had already bought their tickets by then.

Indigo and Air India have been accused of using their market dominance to charge exorbitant rates and have requested comment from them. Neither airline has responded.

Higher taxes adding to the burden

According to experts, airlines are not to blame for the rising fares. India’s high aviation taxes are a key factor too.

The country levies the most high taxes on ATF, which accounts for 45% of air ticket prices in Asia. By mid-2024, jet fuel prices in cities like Delhi and Mumbai were nearly 60 percent higher than in global hubs like Dubai, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur, largely due to value-added taxes (VAT), central excise duties and additional cesses.

A user development fee, which ranges from 150 rupees ($1.7) to 400 rupees ($4.5), an airport passenger service fee of about 150 rupees ($1.7), an airport terminal fee of 100 rupees ($1.2), a regional connectivity fee of 50 rupees ($0.6) and 100 rupees ($1.2) per passenger, are also included in the cost of the tickets. Each of these amounts is small, but together, they add up. They instead travel to the airport or the government, not the airline.

In June, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents more than 350 airlines globally, called for greater clarity in India’s taxation system, arguing that it was too complex.

Travel agent from New Delhi, Amjad Ali, claimed to have been in the airline industry since 2005 and had never seen a significant increase in airfares until 2020. “Fares used to increase gradually, but since 2020, they have shot up rapidly”, he said.

Ali typically purchases tickets from destinations like Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Patna, and Delhi-Purnea. Patna and Purnea are cities in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.

He claimed that the introduction of new routes has resulted in more passengers arriving at new airports like Purnea. Before the pandemic, a Mumbai–Delhi ticket, booked well in advance, used to cost about 3, 800 rupees ($43), but now, it is hard to find one below 6, 000 rupees ($68) for the same journey.

In addition, some airlines have begun reducing the discounts they used to offer some customers. Previously, Air India offered a 50 percent concession on the base fare for domestic student travel, but after privatisation, this was reduced to only 10 percent.

According to Ali, there is a discernible decline in student travel. “We rarely see students flying these days”, he said.

In the end, according to Singh from the FAII, the industry was shooting itself in the foot by making flying unaffordable for millions of Indians.

“If we want air travel to become truly accessible to a larger section of the population, particularly those with limited financial means, the government and aviation stakeholders must work towards reducing these taxes and surcharges”, she said.

Nurdin and his wife’s house in Aceh Province, in Indonesia, was submerged in water last week, and the elderly couple climbed onto their bed as a result.

Nurdin, who had a stroke, accepted his fate by putting himself in a wheelchair.

“I was merely waiting to pass away. Nurdin, who resides in the city of Langsa, told Al Jazeera, “I didn’t want to leave my home.”

My wife insisted we leave, but I made the decision to just go there.

Nurdin’s younger brother called the couple’s nearby neighbors for assistance as the water rose.

The water was chest-deep by the time Nurdin’s neighbors arrived on Wednesday at around 4am to help the pair.

The 71-year-old woman who uses a single name, like many Indonesians, said, “We were hit by a strong water current, which knocked my neighbor off his feet, and we both plunged into the flood.”

I started drowning because I couldn’t stand up, and I thought, “This is it.”

Nurdin and his wife were unhurt when they arrived at their neighbor’s house, but torrential rains soon caused the pair to flee to a nearby mosque using a table as a makeshift stretcher.

No clothes were present, so Nurdin simply required me to put on a sarung. I spent four days there, I thought.

Nurdin claimed that another Langsa resident had informed him that he lived nearby a cemetery and that the deluge had seen bodies emerge from the ground and disappear into the water.

Nurdin, who has been staying at his brother’s house since the floodwaters have receded, has not yet returned to his home, but his sibling informed him that almost everything has been completely destroyed when he went to the scene.

“Possibly a portion of my belongings can be saved. My fridge was destroyed, according to Nurdin, and everything in the kitchen is gone.

“All of my clothes were covered in water and mud, and the doors to my wardrobes were ripped off.” Around a half-meter of mud still sits in front of my house.

More than 1, 140 people have died in recent weeks due to severe weather caused by three tropical cyclones in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Malaysia.

In Indonesia alone, at least 631 people have died.

The death toll is anticipated to rise as many of the island’s main cities remain inaccessible.

Following flash floods, which caused roads to become impassable and hampered search and rescue efforts, many parts of the island have been buried in landslides.

Nurkasyah, a 70-year-old resident of northern Aceh Province’s Kuta Makmur, is one of the many people who almost have lost all of their belongings.

“My rice was destroyed,” Nurkasyah told Al Jazeera, “and my refrigerator, my rice cooker, and all of my rice.”

“I can’t use everything in my house because it was submerged in water.” It didn’t float away. If I leave my bed outside and allow it to dry in the sun for a few days, I might be able to save it.

In response to torrential rain overnight, the waters started rising on Tuesday, but gradually subsided before rising again on Wednesday as a result. Water was “coming in through the windows.”

Nurkasyah and 300 others hid for the next five days in a nearby community center, eating only the few essential items the terrified residents could not get before fleeing the rising waters.

“We merely consumed some eggs, instant noodles, and rice.” She claimed that there wasn’t enough food to go around. I went to see my house, but it’s now mud-filled, so I’m unable to live there.

Nurkasyah’s son, Nasir, was traveling by bus from Banda Aceh, the provincial capital of Aceh, to Medan, the provincial capital of neighboring North Sumatra at the same time that Nurkasyah was watching the floodwaters rise around her home.

Although the road trip typically takes about 12 hours, Nasir ended up stranded on a bus for the following five days.

He told Al Jazeera, “We could still get through, even though the floodwaters were starting to rise after we left on Tuesday.”

The driver, who was speaking in a town along the&nbsp, border of Aceh and North Sumatra provinces, said, “Unfortunately, when we got to Kuala Simpang on Wednesday afternoon, he said he couldn’t go any further or go back.”

Nasir and the other passengers climbed onto the roof of the bus to check on the scene as the town began to become submerged in rising floodwaters.

A group of us decided to take the initiative and try to find an alternative route out of there on Sunday morning, Nasir said.

“We all came to the same conclusion: There is no way we can go back to Aceh, and we must continue to Medan.” A fisherman owned the boat that we used to travel on, and a pick-up truck took us the rest of the way.

With so much mud, fallen trees, and other debris, Nasi is now facing an arduous journey home.

As tensions escalate over potential military action by the United States, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has called for peace and pledged “absolute loyalty” to his people at a rally in Caracas.

According to media reports, the rally took place as US President Donald Trump and his national security team discussed Venezuela’s “next steps.”

Maduro told a crowd of Venezuelans outside the presidential palace in Caracas that they only desired peace “with sovereignty, equality, and freedom” and that they wanted peace instead.

We oppose peace in colonies and between slaves and people! Never, ever, Colonia! Never, ever, “slaves”! he stated.

In what it calls an anti-drug trafficking campaign, the Trump administration has been mounting pressure on Venezuela as a military expansion continues in the Caribbean. According to Caracas, the actions are intended to overthrow Maduro’s administration.

The US has deployed the largest aircraft carrier in the area, which is the largest carrier in the world, and it has designated the Cartel de los Soles, which Maduro leads as a drug trafficking cartel, as a “terrorist” organization.

At least 83 people have been killed by at least 21 strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific since September, according to it.

According to experts, the US’s combined force far exceeds what is required for a drug-trafficking operation, while Caracas asserts that the US is attempting to overthrow Venezuela’s numerous natural resources, including oil.

Maduro claimed on Monday that the US was conducting a “psychological terrorism campaign.”

He claimed that “we have endured 22 weeks of aggression that can only be described as psychological terrorism.” The Venezuelan people have shown their love for their country, he continued, adding, “These 22 weeks have put us to the test.”

Calls from Trump and Maduro

Trump, by contrast, confirmed on Sunday that he had spoken with Maduro on the phone, but he said the conversation had not gone “well or poorly.”

According to a Reuters news release on Monday, Trump reportedly offered Maduro a safe exit from Venezuela during the brief call on November 21 citing four reputable sources.

According to three of the sources, Maduro told Trump he was willing to leave Venezuela if he and his family received full legal amnesty, including the end of a significant case he faces before the International Criminal Court (ICC), Reuters reported.

He also requested that more than 100 Venezuelan government officials be free of sanctions, many of whom the US has accused of alleged human rights violations, drug trafficking, or corruption, according to Reuters.

Trump told Maduro he had a week to travel to the place of his choosing alongside his family members, rejecting the majority of his requests during the call.

Two of the sources told Reuters that Trump declared Saturday that Venezuela’s airspace was closed as a result of that safe passage on Friday.

The US or Venezuela did not respond to the report right away.

Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, is not recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate president, according to the Trump administration. In a national election that independent observers claimed the opposition won overwhelmingly, Maduro claimed a re-election victory last year.

Maduro’s appearance at the Caracas rally came amid rumors that he had left the country in response to Trump’s announcement to close Venezuela’s airspace, according to Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, who is a reporter from Cucuta on the Colombia-Venezuela border.

Bo claimed that Venezuelans who pass through the Simon Bolivar bridge between the two nations were “extremely concerned about the possibility of a military strike” by the US.

Venezuela continues to deploy military vehicles throughout the nation in the interim. They are guarding Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, and particularly the main highway that runs between the airport and the coastal regions. Vladimir Padrino Lopez, the minister of defense, has shown off some military equipment, including fighter jets and aerial defenses, she claimed.

Sources in Venezuela told Al Jazeera that they are aware that the US cannot compete with the country’s military, she claimed.

“That’s why they’re concentrating on a different strategy. And this might include arbitrary attacks, sabotage, using criminal organizations, supporters of the government, and possibly guerrillas, among others,” Bo said.

Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has pleaded guilty to two counts of drug trafficking and organized crime in a Chicago court, replacing his earlier not guilty verdict after his arrest last year.

Guzman Lopez sparingly in court on Monday while sporting an orange jumpsuit and matching pair of shoes. Sharon Coleman, the judge of the Northern District of Illinois, questioned him about his work-related activities early in the hearing.

Guzman Lopez responded, “Drug trafficking.”

Coleman chuckled back, “Oh, that’s your job.”

According to reports, Guzman Lopez is expected to avoid life in prison if he accepts a guilty plea as part of a deal that allows him to cooperate with US prosecutors and pay an $80 million fine for his crimes.

He still faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison, according to federal government attorney Andrew Erskine.

According to reports, Guzman Lopez will be sentenced by a judge at a later time and won’t be able to file an appeal as part of the plea deal.

After the hearing, Guzman Lopez’s defense attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, stated that the government has treated Joaquin fairly so far.

According to Lichtman, “I do appreciate the fact that the Mexican government did not interfere.”

In the 35-page plea deal, Guzman Lopez and his brothers admitted to supporting the cartel’s activities by paying off officials and using weapons and other weapons to execute threats against law enforcement, rival traffickers, and even members of their own organization, according to a report from the Chicago Tribune.

The “Chapitos”

In the US, Guzman Lopez and his brother Ovidio are accused of leading a powerful Sinaloa cartel faction after their father allegedly inherited their father from El Chapo and are one of the four sons known as the “Chapitos” or “little Chapos” in the country.

In July, Ovidio Guzman Lopez admitted guilt on two counts of drug distribution and two counts of engaging in a persistent criminal activity in the US. He might receive a life sentence.

Two more brothers are still at large. El Chapo, their father, was sentenced to life in a maximum security prison in 2017, and was extradited to the US in 2017.

US federal authorities described the Sinaloa cartel’s activities as a “staggering” network that brought “staggering” amounts of fentanyl into the US in 2023.

As prosecutors on Monday outlined the circumstances that led to Guzman Lopez’s dramatic arrest in Chicago in July 2024, along with another long-standing Sinaloa leader, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the security at the federal court was raised.

After landing in a&nbsp, a small private plane, the pair were detained in Texas. In response to reports of betrayal that led to the arrests in the US, two factions of the Sinaloa cartel clashed, prompting a rise in violence in Mexico’s northern state of Sinaloa.

El Mayo’s kidnapping appears to be an admission made by Guzman Lopez.

Guzman Lopez also admits to kidnapping an unnamed person who is alleged to be Zambada in his plea deal.

The alleged kidnapping was described in court by Erskine, a federal government lawyer, who claimed Guzman Lopez had the glass removed from a floor-to-ceiling window.

Guzman Lopez allegedly arranged for someone else to enter through an open window, seize the person, stuff his head over his head, and take him to a plane while they were having a meeting there. Before the plane touched down at a New Mexico airport close to the Texas border, he was zip-tied and given sedatives.

Erskine claimed that Guzman Lopez’s alleged kidnapping was part of a campaign to show cooperation with the US government, which did not sanction his actions. Because of the kidnapping, he claimed, Guzman Lopez would not be eligible for cooperation credit.

Guzman Lopez’s information accentuates some of the details that Zambada already disclosed in a letter he signed and that his lawyer released shortly after his arrest last year.

Zambada’s attorney claimed that his client had been “forced to kidnapped” onto the US flight. Zambada claimed Guzman Lopez asked him to meet with local politicians on July 25 in the two-page letter. According to Zamboda, El Chapo’s son organized the meeting to “help resolve the political leaders’ differences.”

The document states that “the idea that I gave up or worked for others completely false.”