In charts: Indians have quit air travel like never before

The nosedive

India’s domestic air passenger traffic has been under intense pressure in the past 15 months, declining on a year-on-year basis in 10 of them. Most of the decline in 2025, in four of the six months, was attributed to heavy rainfall and dampened business sentiment amid global uncertainty. The declines in six of the nine months in 2026 have been mainly on the back of rising airfares following the sharp surge in fuel prices due to the West Asia war. The result of the back-to-back decline is that domestic air passenger levels have reached very close to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019, erasing the gains seen from 2023 to the first half of 2025. Simply put, if 100 passengers travelled in 2019, only 126.6 passengers travelled in May 2026, which declined to 112.3 in June 2026 and further to 101.1 in July 2026, before recovering somewhat to 103.1 in August 2026 and 102.9 in September 2026. The levels seen in July-September are worse than those seen three years ago.

Unexpected downturn?

The West Asia war has been the biggest disruptor to the aviation industry this year. Its impact was immediately seen on international traffic as the war led to the closure of airports and airspace restrictions in the West Asia region, longer routes to other destinations, and pushed prices up. Consequently, international traffic—as measured by airport traffic by the Airports Authority of India—fell below its pre-pandemic levels in March and April. However, as the conflict eased, international traffic bounced back to some extent. The ripple effects of the war—high fuel prices and their pass-through to domestic consumers—impacted domestic air traffic with some lag but are now proving to be more structural. The recent declines, on top of the lower levels in 2025, have pulled domestic air traffic lower than international levels relative to pre-pandemic levels since June 2026.

Flying prices

If the war-led disruptions impacted international travel, the decline in domestic traffic is being largely attributed to rising airfares and inflation in general, which have forced consumers to cut discretionary spending.

The official data captures the extent of the increase in airfares this year. Retail airfare inflation has surged consistently since March, crossed a 20% year-on-year rise in July and reached close to 30% by September. For context, overall travel costs have increased too, but the rise in airfares has been four to six times that.

In fact, these high levels are pre-festive inflation prints. Since airfares are dynamic in nature, it is difficult to ascertain the average rise from ticket price data. A comparison of second AC railway fare and the cheapest available airfare for one-way travel on popular routes covering Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad does shed some light on the wide price gap in the current pre-Diwali week. Air travel is currently costing 45-186% more than rail travel, significantly higher than about a 25-30% premium on average.

A premium mode

In India, air travel remains a premium mode of travel. According to data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), India’s local population need 17 days of work on average to afford a plane ticket. This is higher than for most emerging market peers, suggesting air travel remains highly unaffordable for a large section of Indians. The recent rise in prices has put pressure on even those who could afford air travel. According to Icra, domestic air passenger traffic has declined due to elevated airfares and weaker discretionary travel demand amid inflationary pressures.

Jagannarayan Padmanabhan, senior director at Crisil, said that higher fares and fuel costs have weighed on affordability in recent months. However, he also cautioned that even as air travel is an important signal of spending behaviour, it was too early to “treat the slowdown as conclusive evidence of a broader consumption downturn.” For now, the airline industry is expected to remain under pressure due to high fuel costs and rupee depreciation, which could keep airfares elevated.

Rupanjal Chauhan

Rupanjal Chauhan is a data journalist at Mint, where she contributes to the Plain Facts and Data Bites sections, focusing on translating complex datasets into clear, insightful, and engaging narratives for a wide audience. Her work focuses on using data to explain policy, economic, and social trends in a clear and accessible way.At Mint, her work spans public finances, trade, geopolitics, and employment, often breaking down large datasets into sharp, evidence-backed stories. Her approach focuses on careful data analysis and clear storytelling, ensuring that each piece not only informs but also enables readers to better understand the forces shaping India’s economy and society.Rupanjal holds a postgraduate diploma in digital media from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), New Delhi, where she specialised in data-driven storytelling and digital journalism. She also has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication from St. Xavier’s College, Ranchi. Her work is guided by a focus on simplifying complex data without losing nuance, with an emphasis on accuracy, transparency, and context, helping readers better understand the patterns and trends behind the numbers.