Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Kolkata are among top ten air routes in India

The absolute number of seats allocated in these routes has seen a sharp increase in the last ten years

India's air passenger traffic has doubled over the last decade, though the pecking order of the top air routes on which people travel regularly has largely remained the same. Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi, Delhi-Bengaluru-Delhi and Mumbai-Bengaluru-Mumbai are the top routes ranked in terms of the seats that are deployed.

From a fifteenth place in 2007, Delhi-Pune-Delhi has climbed up to sixth place in 2017 while Delhi-Kolkata-Delhi route has scaled up to fourth spot in 2017 from seventh in 2007, says data sourced from civil aviation research firm OAG. The Delhi-Lucknow-Delhi route climbed five places from the seventeenth rank in 2007 to twelfth in 2017.

Many sectors did not see significant changes in their standings, the absolute number of seats deployed in these sectors has grown over the past ten years. According to a The Indian Express, certain routes that witnessed a sluggish growth till 2014, such as Delhi-Kolkata-Delhi, Delhi-Lucknow-Delhi, and Delhi-Hyderabad-Delhi, witnessed a spike in the allocation of a number of seats in the following three years.

A list of top 17 routes by operated by Indian airlines, domestic and international, in terms of seats deployed, is a factor of growth in passenger traffic. The only international destination which featured in the top 17 routes was the Dubai route.The trunk routes also contributed a share to the number of seats deployed, said the national daily.

According to the data of the 17 sectors, airlines allocated nearly 47 per cent of the seats to the seats to the top five sectors in 2017, which is slightly higher than 43 per cent in 2007. Government data also show that India's annual air passenger traffic has gone up to 110 million to in 2017 to 40 million in 2007.

According to the daily, Delhi-Ahmedabad-Delhi increased from 1.62 million in 2007 to 1.37 million in 2014. The number of seats also rose sharply to 2.5 million in 2017 from 1.67 million in 2015. The number of seats in Delhi-Pune-Delhi sector also rose sharply and nearly doubled in seven years between 2007 and 2014, at 1.72 million. Delhi-Kolkata-Delhi also saw a 25% surge in the allocation of seats from 1.90 million in 2007 to 2.37 million in 2014. It further increased by 55 per cent within three years, to 3.68 million seats.