Indian airlines to operate 8pc more weekly flights in winter months

New Delhi: India’s airlines will operate over 8% more flights in the upcoming winter season at 23,732 flight departures every week, regulatory data showed. This is also 1.4pc higher than the winter schedule during the pre-pandemic period of 2019.

Flight deployments for the winter are also 3.6% higher than the summer schedule, when airlines had proposed 22,907 flight departures.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) approves flight departures for airlines in India twice a year under the summer and winter schedules. The winter schedule will be in effect from 29 October to 30 March.

The grounding of low-cost carrier Go First in May has left a gap of over 1,300 flight departures, as it scheduled that many departures last winter.

India’s largest airline IndiGo will see the maximum increase among major carriers in deployment, as it proposed to operate 13,119 flight departures, up 30pc from last year’s 10,085. Air India is expected to see a 19% growth as it has proposed to deploy 2,367 flight departures compared with 1,990 flights last year. The cumulative flight departures proposed by AirAsia India and Air India Express stood at 1,940 flights compared with 1,462 in the previous year, while Vistara has witnessed a 2pc drop in proposed flights deployment to 1,902 flight departures per week.

For Akasa Air, weekly flight departures will rise 5pc from the summer schedule and 65pc from the last winter schedule to 790 flights a week.

SpiceJet, which continues to face curtailed capacity, will see a 33pc drop from the year-ago period and 5pc dip from the summer schedule in proposed deployment to 2,132 flights per week.

“Of these 118 airports, Bathinda, Jaisalmer, Ludhiana, Nanded, Shivamogga, Salem, Utkela, Hindon, and Ziro are the new airports proposed by the scheduled airlines whereas operations from Gondia airport have not been proposed in Winter Schedule 2023," DGCA said.