Mumbai-Delhi flight route busiest in India, Bengaluru-Delhi sees second most air traffic

The Bengaluru-Delhi saw around 27,000 flights or 2.4% of domestic traffic followed by the Bengaluru-Mumbai route which saw around 25,000 flights or 2.2%, the report ‘Aviation in India: Sustaining – and Growing – a Dynamic Air Transport Market’ said.

New Delhi: Flight traffic between Bengaluru and the country’s capital Delhi as well as with the financial capital Mumbai were among the busiest in the country in 2024, accounting for 4.7 per cent of the total services, according to a report by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

While both the routes were ranked second and third, the Mumbai-Delhi route topped the list, accounting for 3.4 per cent or around 39,000 flights of all domestic flights in 2024, which would have translated to an average of over 100 flights per day in both directions.

The Bengaluru-Delhi saw around 27,000 flights or 2.4 per cent of domestic traffic followed by the Bengaluru-Mumbai route which saw around 25,000 flights or 2.2 per cent, the report ‘Aviation in India: Sustaining – and Growing – a Dynamic Air Transport Market’ said.

The other routes in the top ten list are: Delhi-Hyderabad (1.7%), Pune-Delhi (1.5%), Delhi-Kolkata (1.4%), Ahmedabad-Delhi (1.3%), Delhi-Srinagar (1,3%) and Hyderabad-Mumbai (1.3%).

“In terms of connectivity, the Indian market has now fully recovered from the 2020 disruption, with the international and domestic air transport connectivity surpassing pre-Covid levels by 13.2% and 19.6% in 2024,” the report said.

Internationally, the two busiest routes are from Mumbai (2.7%) and Delhi (2.2%) to Dubai, which accounted for a combined 4.9% of all flights from India. These routes are followed by Delhi-Kathmandu (1.6%), Delhi-Bangkok (1.4%) and Mumbai-Abu Dhabi (1.4%). "Collectively, the top 10 routes account for almost 15.5% of total international flights," it said.

The other top routes were: Delhi-London (1.3%), Chennai-Colombo (1.3%), Kochi-Abu Dhabi (1.3%), Chennai-Singapore (1.2%) and Kochi-Dubai (1.1%).

The report said the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic in India highlights the resilience of air transport in this rapidly growing and dynamic market. "Unsurprisingly, domestic traffic recovered more quickly initially, but the international market segment has since closed the gap and subsequently moved ahead, following the reopening of global borders," it said.

As of December 2024, it said the international sector is almost 20% above its 2019 level, while domestic is more than 8% higher and such a positive recovery reaffirms the strong demand within India for both domestic and international air travel and provides a firm foundation for the period ahead.

Approximately 174 million passengers traveled from and within India by air in 2024, accounting for around 4.2% of the global total.