International connectivity this winter: Foreign airlines add 3% flights

New Delhi: International airlines will operate 2,331 weekly flights this winter to India, marginally 3% up from 2,262 last winter as the NDA government has not increased flying rights or bilaterals of other countries in recent years. Indian airlines will operate 1,847 weekly international flights this 2019-20. In all, there will be 4,178 weekly international flights this year. A full comparison cannot be made as yet as DGCA has not given last winter’s figures of international weekly flights by Indian carriers — unlike the winter 2018-19 versus 2019-20 data for international airlines.
The closure of Jet Airways earlier this year — India’s largest single airline in terms of flying people in and out of the country in past few years — is bound to have impacted the winter number for desi airlines. Provisional figures on DGCA website shows Jet operated about 18,000 international departures from November 2018 to March, 2019 (the winter schedule period) — which roughly translates into a loss of about 830 international weekly departures by Indian carriers this winter.