New Delhi/Mumbai: Indian airlines are set to operate a little over 23,000 weekly domestic flights during the summer schedule starting from March 29, which is 10 per cent less than the services flown during the same period a year ago.
Aviation watchdog DGCA has published the domestic flights summer schedule, which is from March 29 to October 24, for nine scheduled airlines.
A senior DGCA official Thursday told PTI that the airlines would be operating around 10 per cent fewer flights in the 2026 summer schedule compared to the previous summer schedule.
During the 2025 summer schedule, there were 25,610 weekly flights, and this time, a 10 per cent reduction would mean the number of services would come down by 2,561. Accordingly, the total count will be about 23,049 weekly flights, as per an analysis.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has put out the airline-wise domestic summer schedule for 2026 on its website, but has not provided a consolidated figure and comparison with the previous summer schedule or the ongoing winter schedule.
The nine airlines that are to operate flights during the 2026 summer schedule are Air India, Air India Express, IndiGo, Akasa Air, SpiceJet, Alliance Air, FLY91, Star Air and IndiaOne Air.
In the current winter schedule from October 26, 2025, to March 28, 2026, airlines were to operate 26,495 weekly flights. However, the massive operational disruptions at IndiGo in early December had an impact, and the DGCA had curtailed the carrier’s winter schedule flights by 10 per cent.
Meanwhile, the ongoing West Asia conflict, involving the US, Israel and Iran that started February 28, is significantly disrupting flight services of Indian carriers to the region.
Against this backdrop, airline executives told PTI that there is a lot of uncertainty and there could be further reduction in the existing summer schedule itself.
The schedule was mostly prepared in January and February, a period during which there were no risks related to the Middle East conflict, which started February 28. Now, the scenario is completely different and operational complexities have increased, one of the officials said.
March 24, IndiGo said it intends to start its domestic summer schedule with nearly 2,000 daily flights in April.
IndiGo’s international schedule was planned at similar levels to winter, but the deployed scale will, of course, vary based on ongoing circumstances in the Middle East. It should be noted that there is a very material escalation in operating costs, with fuel and forex-related costs expected to continue to increase very substantially, in addition to what is already an escalating cost environment, the airline had said.
