What will it take for this flight to take off?

Facing soaring costs across fronts, airlines in India sounded the alarm to the authorities.

- Anjuli Bhargava

The government has announced a 10,000-crore support to stabilise aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices — oil marketing companies’ losses from sales to airlines will be offset from this fund.

While the latest measure will definitely help to an extent, it is not the answer to all the airlines’ woes which seem to be mounting amid uncertainties. A deeper dive and a more permanent solution to the disparity in ATF pricing vis-a-vis international carriers will be required in the longer term. This financial year (FY27) began on a particularly dismal note: For the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic, traffic crawled to a virtual standstill in March 2026 — registering a growth of 1% over March last year — according to a recent report by credit rating agency ICRA. With fares rising sharply, passengers held back on air travel. Air India announced and embarked upon cutting up to 40% of its international and 5% of its domestic flights and IndiGo too trimmed its summer schedule. As the mercury rises, passengers are looking to travel either domestically or to short-haul regional destinations, with the steep rise in international fares. The war in West Asia and its ripple effects have hit India’s travel and airline industry quite hard.