Aviation

India’s UDAN scheme, launched in 2016, has revolutionized domestic aviation by making air travel affordable and connecting remote towns and regions to the national network. Over nine years, it has enabled more than 1.56 crore passengers to fly on 3.23 lakh flights across 649 regional routes, introducing air service to 93 airports, 15 heliports, and 2 water aerodromes. Supported by ₹4,300 crore in Viability Gap Funding, UDAN ensures sustainability for airlines on less-trafficked routes while driving economic growth, regional tourism, and job creation. The government now plans to further expand, targeting 120 new destinations and aiming to serve 4 crore passengers in the coming decade. This transformative approach is matched by rapid infrastructure growth—India’s airports have more than doubled from 74 in 2014 to 163 in 2025, with projections of reaching 350–400 airports and handling over 1 billion passengers annually by 2047. Policy innovations such as Krishi UDAN, Lifeline UDAN, and Digi Yatra have built a more inclusive, efficient, and technology-driven aviation ecosystem, while key legislative reforms and incentives underpin indigenous manufacturing, drone operations, and expansion of flight training. Altogether, UDAN and its allied initiatives have firmly positioned aviation as an engine for economic inclusion, community development, and India’s rise as a global air travel leader.

While China’s size as an aviation market is notably bigger than India, the pace of the latter’s growth is expected to gather pace amid rapidly growing air travel demand from a massive population base whose per capita air travel is low, which in turn points to a significant growth potential. The growth rate of India’s air passenger traffic appears set to overtake that of China in 2026, and the former is likely to be the world’s fastest-growing large aviation market over the next three decades, per projections from global airports industry body Airports Council International (ACI). While China’s size as an aviation market is notably bigger than India, the pace of the latter’s growth is expected to gather pace amid rapidly growing air travel demand from a massive population base whose per capita air travel is low, which in turn points to a significant growth potential. China, on the other hand, is already at a level of relatively greater maturity as an aviation market, and the scope of speedy growth may be limited vis-à-vis India. Nevertheless, ACI’s long-term projections show that China is likely to overtake the US as the world’s largest aviation market by passenger numbers by 2053. India, despite the expected faster growth, is likely to maintain its position as the world’s third-largest aviation market over the next 30 years. The relatively high base of flyers in the US and China means that even with lower rates of growth than India’s, the aviation markets of these two giants will still be larger even 30 years down the line. According to ACI’s short-term projections till 2027, India’s air passenger growth in 2026 is seen at 10.5 per cent, higher than China’s 8.9 per cent for that year.