“Earlier, the Indian airports were merely destination airports, but today we find a rising trend of people flying from one part of the world and come to Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata, and take another onward flight without really exiting into any Indian city. That trend is increasing,” Vinay Malhotra, head of global sales at IndiGo, said.

Further, the airline has seen an increase in tendency to transit through Indian airports by Indians as well as foreigners.

“Earlier, these hubs existed only outside of India. It is heartening to see that Indian airports are now becoming a hub, we are able to offer seamless connections, our airports are becoming so much better and ability to offer connectivity from a country A into Delhi and after two-three hours of transit time onwards to another country C, the fact that this is happening is a really good thing and a welcome change. It is adding to our economy, tourism, and trade,” he said.

IndiGo has seen a higher number of transit passengers who are opting to fly via an Indian city onward to another foreign country such as Dubai-Bangkok, Bahrain-Phuket, Kuwait-Phuket, Sharjah-Jeddah, Dhaka-Riyadh, and Kathmandu-Far East, among other destinations.

IndiGo is the biggest airline in terms of market share in the domestic sector and second largest among the Indian carriers—next to the Air India Group—in the international sector to and from India.

The airline, however, did not share the percentage of transit passengers on their network.

The larger transit traffic is also visible in terms of an increase in space at airports for transit passengers and infrastructure development by the ministry of civil aviation to make India a hub for international air traffic. In April, Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia told Mint that the government has set in motion a plan to transform Indian airports into aviation hubs—beginning with the Delhi airport—to ensure seamless connectivity and minimize connection time between flights.

The airline further said that its low-cost model, offering affordable fares is working fine on the international network just as it has worked on the domestic front. In fact, the concept of low-cost, no-frills service has found acceptance globally as well. In the case of flying from the east coast to the west coast in the US, for a flight of six hours, airlines offer limited services on board and the rest of offerings are to be pre-purchased, Malhotra said.

“Whether it is on our international or domestic service, we find people are accustomed to it and comfortable with the fact that if they wish to pre-book, they will; otherwise they will probably buy on board. So, people are truly changing to the fact that this is the way a low-frills carrier works and many of them choose us because we offer this product and service,” he said.

“(International) yields are always going up and down depending on seasonality, we continue to ensure that we are pegging our fares in such that we are able to fill our flights and continue to offer yields which are comparable and affordable,” he said.

IndiGo, which commenced international operations in 2011, had connectivity to 26 international destinations as of March 2023. The airline’s international network is expected to reach 32 destinations soon with the addition of Nairobi, Jakarta, Baku, Tashkent, Tbilisi, and Almaty.

As a share of the capacity, the airline plans to allocate 30% available seat kilometres in the next two years to international capacity. In India, the airline currently has 63.4% stake in domestic air traffic and occupies 16% stake in the international traffic to and from India.

Updated: 24 Aug 2023, 11:39 PM IST