IndiGo now sole operator on 60.4% of India's domestic air routes

How one carrier's meltdown can paralyze a nation's air travel-and why regulators are watching

IndiGo is now the sole airline on a staggering 60.4 per cent of India’s domestic routes, up from just 22.3 per cent a decade ago, underscoring why its operational meltdown has effectively paralysed air travel across the country.

 

The overall 10-year data, shared by aviation analytics firm Cirium, reveals a fundamental shift from competitive distribution to extreme concentration.

 

That dominance is evident on some of the country’s busiest corridors. Consider the Chennai-Coimbatore and Kolkata-Hyderabad routes, which together saw 927 scheduled flights last month (472 and 455, respectively). Or take the Chennai-Tiruchchirappalli and Ahmedabad-Hyderabad sectors, which recorded a combined 688 flights (360 and 328, respectively). The critical point across all these key routes is the same- every single one of these nearly 1,615 monthly flights was by IndiGo. No other airline offered a single flight.

 

This was not always the case. In November 2015, India's domestic air network consisted of 355 unique routes, and IndiGo was the sole operator on 79 of them. While IndiGo was the largest player even then, it still faced substantial competition from other carriers such as Air India and SpiceJet, which had their own exclusive domains as well. Air India was the sole operator on 49 routes and SpiceJet on 41 routes in November 2015, according to the data.

 

When seen in percentage terms, in November 2015, about 22.3 per cent of domestic routes in India had flights only from IndiGo, 13.8 per cent only from Air India, and 11.5 per cent only from SpiceJet. 

 

Over the next decade, while the total number of unique domestic routes almost tripled to 1,004 by November 2025, IndiGo’s exclusive route network,  where it is the sole operator, expanded nearly eight-fold to 606 routes by last month. This massive imbalance shows that a significant chunk of the domestic air market's physical expansion in the last 10 years has been done by a single airline, leaving six out of every 10 domestic routes without any competition.

 

SpiceJet and Air India’s exclusive domains have dramatically shrunk. Last month, Air India was the sole operator on just six routes, and SpiceJet on 11 routes, according to Cirum's data.

 

When seen in percentage terms, in November this year, about 60.4 per cent of domestic routes in India had flights only from IndiGo, three per cent only from Air India Group (which also includes Air India Express), and 1.1 per cent only from SpiceJet.

 

IndiGo’s financially-disciplined model has allowed it to sustain stronger profitability than its rivals and steadily induct new aircraft through a series of large orders. This financial resilience enabled the airline to absorb capacity and secure valuable airport slots vacated by competitors that could not withstand India’s structurally high-cost, low-fare environment. The most consequential shifts were the collapses of Jet Airways in 2019 and Go First in 2023, which removed substantial market share from the system.

 

At the same time, since the pandemic, SpiceJet has been weighed down by persistent financial stress, a large number of grounded aircraft, and ongoing legal challenges, limiting its ability to mount a meaningful competitive response.

 

The only major counterbalance has been the Tata Group’s takeover of Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express in 2022, followed by their consolidation with Vistara and AirAsia India, respectively.

 

While the Tata-run Air India Group has placed significant aircraft orders and begun a multi-year, capital-intensive programme to modernise the fleet and overhaul legacy processes, the transformation remains in progress. It has yet to produce the scale or efficiency required to challenge IndiGo’s lead in India’s fast-growing domestic market. 

 

Today, the Air India Group and IndiGo cumulatively fly more than 9 out of 10 domestic passengers every month, underscoring how much hinges on the performance of these two carriers.

 

A senior lawyer, well-versed in India’s competition law, said that dominance by itself is not an offence. It becomes actionable only when there is “abuse of dominance,” and in such cases the matter can be taken to the Competition Commission of India (CCI). Abuse could be established if a rival airline can show that IndiGo structurally prevented it from operating on routes where IndiGo is the sole operator, or if IndiGo deliberately priced fares far below cost to drive competitors out. Abuse may also be considered if an airline is shown to have kept fares excessively high with the intent to exploit consumers. No such case has been filed against IndiGo so far.