Udta India: From Bengaluru to Amsterdam and Chandigarh to Bangkok

A Business Standard analysis of flying patterns reveals that there is a massive boom of Indians flying out from some cities and going to some others

In last year’s Budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley quipped about the fact that more than 20 million people flew to international destinations from India but only 7.6 million declared an annual income of more Rs 500,000 in 2015-16. An analysis of flying patterns of people shows that Mr Jaitley might have reasons to rejoice not just because there were more than double the number of people in this income bracket who filed tax returns in AY 2017-18 but there has been a steady rise in the number of Indians flying across the world in recent years. 

Business Standard analysed the flying trends of Indians to certain cities from 2015 to 2018. For the sake of brevity, only cities that saw more than 10,000 arrivals annually from India were considered. The story of flying patterns is a changing one, dictated by economic, social and personal reasons. The story told through the following four interactive and static maps throws up some interesting trends. 

The overall picture: Who flew from where to where 

In 2017, almost 30 million people flew from various Indian cities to destinations across the world. This was two million more than the previous year. On expected lines, Dubai continued to be the top destination for Indians. While many go there in search of work, many others go for leisure and business. Almost 6 million people flew to Dubai from various Indian cities – five times more than London. 

There was a consistent increase in the number of people flying from India to West Asia from 20115 to 2017. But Oman stood out in that region with the number of Indians flying to the country almost doubling during this period. Indians comprise almost a fifth of Oman’s population. 

Saudi Arabia, however, seemed to be losing Indians’ interest. King Salman’s decision to impose a family tax requiring every migrant to pay 100 Saudi riyals per family member every month certainly seems to have had its desired effect. 

People flying from India to Riyadh and Damamm grew by just about 5 per cent. Fewer people were flying out from Ahmedabad to New York, while the number of people flying to Beijing, Guangzhou and Singapore increased by more than half. 

 

Hail North America, South East Asia

In terms of world regions, North America saw the biggest increase in the number of passengers from India between 2015 and 2017. More than half a million people flew to Newark, New York, Chicago and Toronto in 2017 – an increase of almost 48 per cent from 2015. Most of these people flew out of international airports at Delhi and Mumbai, while a smaller number flew from Hyderabad, too. 

Europe saw the least enthusiastic increase among all regions in terms of overall passenger growth. London continued to be the top draw, attracting almost 1.2 million passengers from various Indian cities. Frankfurt and Paris got almost half a million passengers each on an average. 

The number of passengers to South East Asian cities grew by 44 per cent during this period. This robust passenger growth seems to have been triggered by more Indian cities getting connected to the cities in the region. Singapore, which attracting two million fliers from India, continued to be the favourite haunt for people flying from India to South East Asia. Passenger traffic to West Asia grew by almost a third, with Dubai topping the list of destination. 

The fastest growing air routes from India 

Even among the world regions that haven’t grown as impressively as others, there are certain routes that have gained more traction than others from 2015 to 2017. For instance, air traffic to Singapore witnessed the fastest growth from Bengaluru, with the number almost doubling to over 2,00,000 in 2017. Hyderabad saw the fastest growth in terms passenger traffic to Kuala Lumpur, with over 100,000 people flying between these two cities in 2017. 

There were quite a few surprises in terms of passenger growth to certain cities in West Asia as well. The fastest growth in passenger traffic to Dubai came from Jaipur, while Kozhikode in Kerala saw the fastest rise in passengers to Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. Passenger traffic to Russia grew the fastest from Goa. In fact, in the first half of 2018, the number of people flying from Goa to Moscow was higher than that in full 2016. The rise in the number of departures in the first half of 2018 could partly be explained by holidaying Russians returning home from Goa. 

 

The emerging hotspots: New Indian cities on the map

While airports like Delhi and Mumbai have traditionally been used to fly across the world, a look at India’s aviation sector statistics shows that certain other cities are emerging as important connectors to the world. Some of them were connected to international destinations as late as 2017. 

Aviation statistics show that Lucknow, Visakhapatnam and Amritsar are emerging hotspots for travelling to Singapore. And Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Varanasi and Jaipur are emerging as important centres to fly to Bangkok. In fact Chandigarh, which was connected by a non-stop flight to Bangkok in December 2017 by Air India, saw more than 8,000 people flying in the first half of 2018. 

Mangalore is an emerging hotspot for travel to Kuwait and Bahrain, with over 10,000 people flying to these nations in the first half of 2018. The southern cities of Bengaluru and Chennai have seen a tremendous enthusiasm among people wanting to fly to Amsterdam and Paris, respectively. More than 44,000 people flew from Bengaluru to Amsterdam in 2018, while almost 34,000 took to France’s capital from Chennai.