India has undergone a massive infrastructural economic boom in last 15 years which has changed the standard of living and lifestyle of people. After the impact of globalization and privatization in 1990, India opened all its gates for foreign investor companies to start their business in Indian Market, underlying the prior focus on mutual exchange of technology and growth. Travel and tourism is such industry which transformed itself to modern amenities of the technologies running worldwide.
Post liberalization, the golden era of travel for domestic flights in India began. What was once a luxury has now become the norm. With a combination of private players participating in the Indian domestic flights sector as well as availability of cheap domestic air tickets the Indian aviation sector became one of the fastest growing in the world. Low cost pioneers like Deccan Airlines shook up the domestic flights space by announcing air tickets at just Rs99 for 99 days which saw it notch up record domestic flight booking numbers.
The change was so immense, that people's travel habits changed significantly. Interestingly, people who once travelled in AC Railway coaches made the switch to the low cost carriers. The cheap cost of domestic air tickets made them comparable to railway AC ticket fares which urged people to make a flight booking instead of travelling via train. No frills airlines pushed the cost of air tickets down further making everybody's dream of flying a reality.
With the metros covered, flights now seem to be focusing on the smaller cities in India for getting flight bookings like Nagpur, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Kochi, Kozhikode and others which cater to the segment of passengers looking for booking flights to their hometown.
The future of domestic airlines in India looks bright with prospects of the Indian aviation sector opening up allowing international players to enter the domestic space and offer even more competitive cheap domestic air tickets for the Indian passengers to choose from. A market growth of roughly 15 percent and the latent potential trapped in the smaller towns of India all make for compelling reasons why flight booking numbers should go up significantly. Rising domestic incomes of India's strong middle class means options will be available for the full service airlines as well. All in all it is advantageous to the customer as domestic airlines in india fight it out to give the customer the best and cheapest domestic air ticket options possible. The only threat in terms of the industry might be the rising crude oil prices and subsequently the high operating costs of the domestic airlines. However, players like Indigo Airlines have shown that it is possible to be a low cost domestic airline and also do well financially.
Top domestic airlines in India operating throughout the country are:-
