IndiGo, Air India likely to remain dominant in Indian skies till 2030

With IndiGo and Air India ramping up fleet additions, India's skies are set to remain a duopoly till 2030, with the top two airlines controlling nearly 85% of aircraft capacity

With IndiGo Airlines becoming the first Indian carrier to induct the wide-bodied A321 XLR, followed closely by Air India taking delivery of its first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner four years after it was privatised, India is likely to continue to remain a duopoly in the skies in calendar year 2030 (CY30), with 85 per cent of the fleet controlled by the top two players. IndiGo inducted the A321 XLR into its fleet on Wednesday.

 

While slower deliveries by Airbus have aggravated global supply shortage, only three airlines in India — IndiGo, Air India, and Akasa — have given long-term orders, going as far as 2037, to lock up deliveries. Airbus, which has a large backlog of planes, is now ramping up production.

 

In 2024-25 (FY25), IndiGo with a 437-strong fleet controlled over half the commercial passenger aircraft, followed by the Air India group with a 35.5 per cent share. The combine dominated the skies with 86 per cent share of total fleet. Akasa and SpiceJet together had over 9 per cent of the planes.

 

The same duopoly is likely to prevail in 2030. Projections by Ameya Joshi, aviation analyst and founder of Network Thoughts, say that by that year, IndiGo will have a fleet of 600 active planes, the Air India group will hit 500, and Akasa Air will have 150. Joshi points out that at the moment it is difficult to gauge the overall industry fleet size as SpiceJet’s survival or future is unclear.

 

Industry estimates show that the overall commercial fleet in India will hit around 1,300-1,350 by 2030. This primarily means that IndiGo’s share would go down marginally by 4 percentage points, which will be mostly gained by the Air India group. Yet together they will still control nearly 85 per cent of the market. The only difference is that Akasa could emerge as a possible third player if it continues to take deliveries as planned and also reduces its growing losses. Akasa could have more than 10 per cent share of the country’s total fleet by 2030 — a level where it can become a viable airline.

 

Clearly, those who have put together a long-term plan for aircraft acquisition can survive. Since 2023, IndiGo, Air India, and Akasa have collectively placed orders for a whopping 1,280 planes from Airbus and Boeing. And their pending orders waiting to be delivered now stand at over 1,600 planes (including orders before 2023).

 

As far as IndiGo is concerned, it made a firm order for 500 Airbus A320neo family planes in June 2023 during the Paris show. In 2025, it again made an order for 30 A-350-900 wide-body aircraft. This order was later modified into 60 planes. Air India has also upped the ante. It made an order for 470 Boeing and Airbus aircraft, and added another 100 to the order in December 2024.

 

In this scenario, for other players — like the three new airlines that have received no-objection certificates (NOCs), and even SpiceJet — looking out for aircraft on lease without firm orders, it would be a Herculean task.