India emerges 3rd largest airline mkt

New Delhi: Driven by robust growth in the aviation sector in the last decade, India is now the third-largest domestic airline market in the world, up from 5th position 10 years ago. Ten years ago, India was the smallest market with around 8 million seats, followed by Indonesia at 4th and Brazil at 3rd place, and the US and China occupying the top two positions. Today, the US and China remain the largest domestic aviation markets.

“However, India is surpassing the Brazilian and Indonesian domestic markets to become the third-largest domestic market with airline capacity of 15.6 million seats in April 2024,” according to OAG data. India’s capacity growth rate of seats over a 10-year average is the highest, growing at 6.9 per cent annually.

“India is the fastest growing market across all five domestic markets we considered. China was close behind with annual growth of 6.3 per cent between 2014 and 2024, and there is a much smaller growth rate in the US and Indonesia,” according to the data.