Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: International air travel in and out of India touched a new quarterly high and crossed the two-crore mark for the first time in October-December 2025.Despite travel to the US remaining subdued due to visa issues across categories such as students and H-1B during President Trump’s second presidency; Canada’s high rejection rate for Indian visa applicants and issuance delays and the reduction in flights by Air India after AI 171 Ahmedabad crash last June, last calendar year saw 7.8 crore people fly to and from India – 8% more than previous year’s 7.2 crore, according to DGCA data.While the share of foreign carriers has been static at 54% as India did not hike the flying rights of a majority of countries whose airlines have a large presence here, the share of Indian carriers has seen a change. In the recent past (after Jet’s demise), Air India group was the largest in terms of flying passengers in and out of the subcontinent.
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That changed in the July-Sept 2025 quarter, with IndiGo since then flying more than the AI Group (see graphic). “Almost 1.5 crore Indians were issued Passports last year. Only 33-35 lakh of these passport holders travelled abroad last year. So we have a large number of passport holders who are aspiring to travel but have not yet travelled. Combine this with the growing power of the Indian passport with more countries offering visa-on-arrival or visa free access and the growing aspiration of a booming middle class, this segment is bound to grow by leaps and bounds for many years to come. There has been a growth in direct connectivity between India and new destinations abroad , many in the nations frequented by Indians, that is fuelling demand,” said Anil Kalsi, Travel Agents Federation of India VP.Many countries in the neighbourhood like Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand count Indians among their bigger foreign spenders and overseas travellers.”Except North America, every other place is seeing a serious growth in demand from Indian travellers. Given the fact that Indians are very high spenders, many countries are increasingly welcoming them with open arms,” said officials.
