Just how fragmented is the Australia-India market?
And what are the implications for direct Australia-India flights
Travel between Australia and India has grown phenomenally in recent years. ABS data shows that 1.1 million people travelled between the two countries in 2025. This was a 6% increase over 2024, and 27% higher than the last full year before the COVID-19 pandemic (in 2019).
Longer term trends are even more impressive. Over the last decade, travel between Australia and India has increased 81%, and has increased in relative importance having grown from 3.2% of all travel to/from Australia a decade ago to 4.9% in 2025.
The market is also relatively balanced with the Australian point-of-sale accounting for 57% of the market. Furthermore, the Australian point-of-sale has grown more rapidly in recent years, increasing 9% over the last year and 41% since 2019.
We’ve previously analysed the reasons for this growth, ascribing it to growing migration, cultural and economic links between the countries, spurred on by India’s strong economic growth.
The growth has contributed to a large build-up in direct flights. In 2019, Air India were the only airline providing direct flights, operating 3x/week Delhi-Melbourne and 5x/week Delhi-Sydney flights (both B787-8). Since then, both routes have increased to daily, while Air India also introduced 3x/week Mumbai-Melbourne (since suspended due to aircraft availability challenges). From July 2026, Air India will upgrade Delhi-Melbourne to the B777-300ER, resulting in a significant increase in capacity.
In 2021, Qantas reentered the Indian market after nearly a decade long absence with seasonal Melbourne-Delhi (3x/week) and year-round Sydney-Bengaluru currently operating up to 6x/week.
Despite the large and growing market, passengers on direct flights make up a small proportion of the market. In 2024, BITRE indicates 301,934 arrivals on direct flights from India, while ABS indicates 992,730 total arrivals from India, meaning that net transit traffic accounts for 70% of total travel between the two countries (BITRE data is not yet available for 2025).
We’ve previously argued that this is due to the fragmentation of the market, particularly on the Indian side, as well as the seasonality of the market. But what does this mean? We’ve come across some detailed data on O&D city pairs between Australia and India that helps us explore this in more detail …