Air India and IndiGo have spent the past few years trying to capture more of India’s international traffic. Air India is rebuilding as a global network carrier, while IndiGo is pushing into long haul with the A321XLR, leased widebodies and 60 A350-900s on order.
But 2026 has shown how difficult that shift can be.
IndiGo suspended Copenhagen exited Manchester and will wind down its Norse 787 program in October. Heathrow will temporarily disappear, while Amsterdam shifts to the smaller A321XLR. Air India has also suspended some Western routes and reduced frequencies across several others in Europe and North America.
Image generated via AI for representational purposes.
At the same time, foreign carriers are adding India capacity. Lufthansa increased frequencies, KLM is completing the first full year of Hyderabad service, SAS launches Mumbai–Copenhagen in October, and Riyadh Air began daily Mumbai flights in August.
The contrast reveals a deeper structural gap. Lufthansa, Emirates and KLM have spent decades building global networks around powerful home hubs. Air India and IndiGo have enormous access to Indian passengers, but Delhi and Mumbai are only beginning to develop comparable connecting strength. The cost shocks of 2026 have simply made that gap more visible.
The Cost of Flying West Has Changed
Pakistan’s airspace closure has forced Indian airlines onto longer routings to Europe and North America, especially from Delhi. On Delhi–Frankfurt, Lufthansa schedules roughly 9 hours 10 minutes, while Air India’s scheduled time is around 10 hours to 10 hours 15 minutes. When Middle East restrictions were added earlier this year, some Indian flights faced even longer diversions, with IndiGo at one point routing some UK services via Africa. Every additional hour raises fuel and crew costs while reducing aircraft productivity.
Those pressures have come alongside higher jet-fuel prices and a weaker rupee. Major airline expenses including fuel, aircraft leases, maintenance and spare parts are dollar-linked, while much of Indian airlines’ revenue is earned in rupees. IndiGo has said more than 60% of its costs are dollar-linked, and currency depreciation contributed to a foreign-exchange loss of roughly ₹4,882 crore in the March quarter.
Stock image used for representational purposes | Credits: IndiGo
IndiGo also entered the 2026 fuel-price shock without a fuel-hedging programme and only began reconsidering that policy in May. Air India was also reportedly unhedged, leaving both more directly exposed to fuel-price movements. By contrast, Lufthansa had hedged 76% of its forecast 2026 fuel requirement at the start of the year, rising to about 86% by the second quarter.
The Hub Advantage: Foreign Airlines Already Control the Network
The second challenge is more fundamental: foreign airlines can spread Indian demand across much larger connecting international networks.
For example, Lufthansa does not need every passenger on a Delhi–Frankfurt flight to be travelling only between India and Germany. In 2025, nearly 49% of Frankfurt Airport passengers and 42% of Munich Airport passengers were connecting. Munich has also identified India–US traffic as its strongest intercontinental transfer flow. One India flight can therefore carry passengers bound not only for Frankfurt, but also Berlin, Madrid, Boston, Toronto and dozens of other destinations.
Stock image used for representational purposes | Credits: Lufthansa
IndiGo and Air India begin from the opposite side of that equation.
IndiGo's greatest advantage is its Indian domestic network. It can feed passengers from cities such as Jaipur, Kochi, Ahmedabad into Mumbai and Delhi before they board an international flight. But once that aircraft lands in Europe, IndiGo’s own network becomes much thinner. It therefore depends on partnerships for onward connectivity. Its reciprocal codeshare with KLM, for example, gives customers access to 30 destinations in Europe and the UK through Amsterdam.
Air India is further along internationally, with a much more established long-haul network than IndiGo, but its hub structure is still developing. Through “Easy Connect”, it has begun feeding Tier 2 cities into its major hubs, starting with Varanasi as the first spoke connected to Delhi. Passengers can complete check-in and immigration at origin before connecting onward to 17 international destinations. The broader aim is to create smoother domestic-to-international transfers through Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, closer to the hub models used in Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Doha.
Stock image used for representational purposes | Credits: Air India
The issue is therefore not whether Indian airlines understand the hub and spoke economics. It is that Lufthansa, KLM, SAS and other established network carriers have spent decades building the connectivity Indian airlines are now trying to create.
Avoiding the Graveyard Route Problem
A popular destination does not automatically make a viable nonstop route. Without enough year-round demand, the right aircraft and sufficient connecting traffic, even an attractive market can become a “graveyard route” — one that looks promising but cannot sustain regular service.
For Indian airlines, the strongest opportunities are where direct origin-and-destination demand is large enough to reduce dependence on connecting traffic.
London is the clearest example of where Indian carriers can win. Air India described itself in late 2025 as the largest carrier between India and the UK, with around 1.7 million annual seats. Strong VFR, business, premium and leisure demand gives the market a large direct passenger base.
Stock image used for representational purposes | Credits: Air India
Athens shows that smaller markets can also work. India–Athens traffic approached 100,000 round-trip passengers in 2025, with around 81% previously travelling via Gulf hubs. IndiGo entered with a 195-seat A321XLR and carried more than 40,000 direct passengers in its first six months. The lesson is simple: thinner markets can work when existing demand is matched with the right aircraft.
Stock image used for representational purposes | Credits: IndiGo
Copenhagen shows the opposite. IndiGo suspended the route, while SAS will launch five weekly Mumbai services in October. But Copenhagen is SAS’s home hub, allowing passengers from Mumbai to connect across Scandinavia, Europe and North America.
For IndiGo, Copenhagen was one destination. For SAS, Copenhagen is the network.
That difference matters. Long-haul route economics depends not only on destination demand, but also on aircraft size and the connecting traffic an airline can place behind its hub.
The Gap Can Narrow
Indian carriers therefore do not lack passengers. Their challenge is converting India's enormous domestic aviation base into an international connecting system powerful enough to compete with the foreign hubs that have carried Indian travelers for decades.
The aircraft are coming. Air India is rebuilding its long-haul fleet, IndiGo's A350s are due from 2028, and Delhi and Mumbai are handling more connecting traffic. But the real measure of success will not simply be how many new European or North American routes Indian airlines launch. It will be whether India can turn its own airports into global hubs rather than continuing to feed Dubai, Doha, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.