New Delhi: In a direct fallout of the June 12 AI 171 crash, IndiGo has for the first time flown more international passengers than Air India group (AI plus AI Express).DGCA data for July-Sept 2025 shows the two Tata Group airlines flew 41 lakh international passengers, while IndiGo was at 41.36 lakh. This was because of the 15% reduction in AI flights — mostly on wide body international routes — after the Ahmedabad Dreamliner crash and a general reluctance from flying AI among travellers for some weeks.
Even during India’s worst ever flight disruption seen earlier this month with IndiGo, the budget carrier had cancelled only 2.4% of its 2,702 international flights between Dec 1 and 9. Domestic cancellations were 10 times higher at almost 25% of the 17,404 scheduled flights not being operated during the same time. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) probe into the IndiGo fiasco is specifically examining this disparity in disruptions too. Clearly, the airline wanted to protect its international flights even as domestic ones were in complete disarray.On a standalone basis, IndiGo had overtaken Air India earlier. In 2019, it had become the single largest Indian airline in terms of carrying international passengers when Jet Airways shut down in April of that year. In its last quarter of flying (Jan-March 2019), Jet was the second largest standalone Indian carrier after AI, with IndiGo at the third spot. In Jet’s prime days, the pecking order for Indian carriers in terms of foreign traffic for many years was Jet, AI, AI Express, IndiGo and SpiceJet (Jan-March 2018 as per DGCA data).How things play out in coming few quarters remains to be seen as Air India’s legacy Boeing wide bodies are now being pulled out for revamp and some will be returned to lessors, leading to a fall in its wide body international capacity in the short-to medium-term. On the other hand, the aviation ministry is finalising at least 10% cut in IndiGo flights till such time the dominant low-cost carrier gets its house in order. The cuts in terms of how many international and how many domestic flights are not yet known.For AI, the biggest shock in recent times was crash of Boeing 787 Dreamliner in Ahmedabad killing 260 people. The first wide body crash in India in decades left passengers hesitant travelling the airline for a few weeks, especially on its Boeing 787s.
