India aviation rebounds with more flights from Saudi, Vietnam, Turkey

Amid robust economic growth, international air travel to India has finally rebounded to pre-pandemic levels – but some of the flight patterns are different than they were in 2019.

To get a sense of the underlying trends and potentially identify hot hospitality markets, CEIC has recently added granular, city-by-city data on flights to our India premium database.

We've charted airline traffic from the top 15 national sources of flights to India from 2018 to the present. The United Arab Emirates, home to many Indians working abroad and the international aviation hub of Dubai, has remained the top source of flights before and after the pandemic. Singapore and Saudi Arabia have retained their spots as the No. 2 and No. 3 sources of flights, respectively. (Saudi Arabia's flight numbers have particularly grown from pre-pandemic trends; Air India Express added routes between Dammam, Jeddah and Riyadh and Indian cities including Mumbai, Hyderabad and Lucknow last year.)

Sri Lanka, meanwhile, has seen its share shrink in the wake of the island nation's economic crisis.

Two markets that are not in the top 15 are also notable. Flights from Vietnam are surging; direct flights to India had only just begun before the pandemic interruption. Mumbai, Kolkata and New Delhi now have connectivity to Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the resort island of Phu Quoc.

Flights from Turkey are also surging as Turkish Airlines pursues its expansion plans.

As demand for air travel grows, the Indian government has committed INR 920 billion (USD11 billion) to expand existing airports and build new facilities.

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