International services by Indian carriers - Winter 26 ✈️The table below captures the international operations in terms of daily scheduled departures by Indian carriers overseas as offered for sale for the last week of November 2026. Three interesting trends stand out ✈️Indian carriers at a macro level are planning similar levels of departure like last year. However in this case, seat counts (& ASKM's) are likely to be significantly lower given IndiGo's elimination of widebody flying as well as the AI group growing departures with the IX fleet of narrow bodies while cutting back less viable routes on Air India metal (eg ATQ LGW or DEL VIE) ✈️Last winter we had seen a cut from the South airports to the gulf and an increase in the rest of country. That trend has reversed a little with all malabar coast airports growing this winter. Indeed Kochi moves into 4th place ahead of Hyderabad and Chennai ✈️The other discernible trend (small now, could be larger over the coming years) is the growth in service outside of the traditional metro and south to gulf corridors. Air India Express has taken the lead in this regard with service to the gulf from Surat, Indore, Bhopal (announced, not yet on sale), Guwahati and Goa Mopa as also Bangkok services from Vizag, Varanasi, Kochi and Indore (announced, not yet on sale). Read with the growth in service to Ahmedabad by Vietnam carriers for instance, it shows a healthy growth in traffic beyond the big cities. Indian carriers are not constrained by Port of call. And while there are bilateral constraints in terms of seat or frequency rights, Indian carriers are not really (yet) leveraging the Asean open skies market ✈️Finally, on last evenings announcement of shifting service from BOM to NMI, the movement of 20 odd daily departures will put NMI into the top 4 and subject to further additions potentially into top 3 as well. However it is revealing that non Dubai/non Abu Dhabi middle east services will move soon - protecting the valuable (& profitable) Dubai / Abu Dhabi / Doha (for IndiGo) and other markets where the customer mix may be unhappy with a shift to NMI. That said, given the need to ramp up domestic connections to feed these middle east flights, I do anticipate NMI gaining domestic services to markets in east, central and south to feed these flights. That in the long term will entrench BLR as the firm #2 in the domestic market ✈️One final note - why the 0.1s and 0.3s etc - it is because a majority of routes flown are serviced on a non daily basis, sometimes even as low as once or twice a week.

State of the Aviation nation Winter Edit Next Sunday (25th October) marks the start of the IATA winter schedule. This also comes bang in the middle of the festive season leading to year end - generally a peak period for flying. I give less credence to the official schedule shared by the DGCA and track instead the flights put on sale by the airlines. ✈️I have been tracking flights offered for sale by Indian carriers over the last several years (4-5 times an year given the multiple peaks and troughs) and November 2026 will be a significant low from the perspective of departures and hence passengers, giving one indication of the health of the underlying discretionary economy ✈️Headline - at a top 20 airport level (>90% of all flights), the total domestic departures by the big 5 airlines (IndiGo, Air India and Air India Express, Akasa and Spicejet), show a 7% decline vs flights offered at the same time the previous year (last week of November in both periods, eliminates any short term festival special flight bias). ✈️It is lower than May 26 as well by about 2% and lower than December 2024 as well. This is despite significant capacity addition and new airports like Navi Mumbai and Jewar entering the scene. This decline is across the board - Lower at slot constrained airports like Mumbai and Pune but sharp everywhere else. ✈️To be fair, the decline in seats will be lower than the decline in departures due to capacity upguaging (ATR -> A320 -> A321) and aircraft reconversion (IX & QP have increased seat counts of their existing max aircraft) ✈️Goa Mopa and Jaipur are the worst impacted reflecting airline thinking with their data on high fares impacting leisure travel. But the decline is secular & barring Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru & Pune, is in double digits everywhere ✈️Frequency cuts impact both metro - metro routes as well as metro - tier 2 routes. In this high fuel cost and depreciated rupee environment, airlines will protect their most profitable routes and cut everything else which is why barring Akasa, every other airline has cut back and in the Air India group, the lower cost lower fare Air India Express is picking up a growing share of domestic flying ✈️One final point on the green field airports - it is clear that passenger preference stays with the old airport - whether it's BOM (vs NMI), GOI (vs GOX) or DEL (vs DXN) - all the greenfield airports are down sequentially in terms of departures vs this summer. It is creditable that NMI is in the top 10 but there is a massive gap between that airport and the next highest which is Pune (PNQ). DXN is not even in the top 30 right now.