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 , 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.
Source: Aljazeera
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