Almost a year ago, in July 2025, IndiGo’s launch of flights to Manchester and Amsterdam were accompanied by considerable excitement. For India’s largest airline, it marked the beginning of a new chapter in its long-haul strategy. For the broader industry, it sparked questions about whether Indian carriers were finally positioned to challenge the Gulf hubs’ long-standing role in connecting India with Europe.
IndiGo moved quickly. Mumbai-Heathrow and Mumbai-Copenhagen followed in October, while Delhi-Manchester was added in November. Within months, the airline had established a meaningful presence in the Europe-India market and appeared to be laying the foundations for a much larger long-haul network.
Twelve months later, the conversation looks rather different.
In February 2026, just four months after launch, IndiGo suspended its Copenhagen service. It subsequently announced the discontinuation of Manchester, reduced frequencies on other European routes and returned one of its leased Boeing 787 aircraft to Norse Atlantic Airways.
Table 1: IndiGo’s European Network One Year Later
| Route | Launch | Status (Jun 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Mumbai – Manchester | Jul 2025 | Reduced frequency. Suspended from Aug 2026 |
| Mumbai – Amsterdam | Jul 2025 | Operating |
| Mumbai – Heathrow | Oct 2025 | Operating |
| Mumbai – Copenhagen | Oct 2025 | Suspended (Feb 2026) |
| Delhi – Manchester | Nov 2025 | Reduced frequency. Suspended from Aug 2026 |
| Delhi – Heathrow | Feb 2026 | Reduced frequency |
Source: IndiGo media release
In a statement about schedule revision in its long-haul network, IndiGo said:
Recently IndiGo’s widebody operation has faced external operational constraints; continuously changing airspace constraints due to geo-political circumstances, congestion at airports both in India and abroad. These factors significantly increased flight and block times causing strain over the airline’s 787-9 schedule that is operated with six wide-body aircraft. With the objective of avoiding inconvenience to customers due to misconnections and cascading delays, IndiGo has decided to take some immediate measures to restore operational reliability in terms of on-time performance for its widebody operation.
IndiGo continues to emphasise that its long-haul ambitions remain intact and that these adjustments reflect operational realities rather than a change in strategic direction. Nevertheless, the developments provide an opportunity to revisit some of the assumptions that accompanied the airline’s entry into Europe.
The Europe-India Market
The significance of IndiGo’s European expansion becomes clearer when viewed in the context of the broader Europe-India market, which continues to offer substantial long-term growth potential.
According to Cirium schedules data cited by Air Service One, airlines planned to operate approximately 2.8 million one-way seats between Europe and India during the Winter 2025 season, marking a record level of direct capacity. Within a year of launching its first long-haul services, IndiGo had become the fourth-largest airline in the market with 314,000 one-way seats, ranking behind only Air India (724,000), Lufthansa (384,000) and British Airways (319,000).
Yet the growth of direct capacity had not fundamentally altered the structure of the market. Connecting traffic remains an important part of the market with two thirds of the passengers still connecting to another flight en route in Gulf, European, or Indian hubs. It is estimated that nearly 40 per cent of Indians flying to Europe and North America connected via Gulf hubs.
This helps explain why IndiGo’s expansion attracted so much attention. For decades, Gulf carriers have played a central role in connecting India and Europe through their hubs in Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi. Every passenger travelling non-stop between India and Europe is potentially one less passenger connecting through an intermediate hub.
A handful of routes was never likely to transform the competitive landscape. However, the prospect of India’s largest airline deploying widebody aircraft across multiple European destinations inevitably raised questions about how much traffic could eventually shift away from the traditional hub-and-spoke model.
The challenge, as the past year demonstrated, was that sustaining and expanding a long-haul network proved far more difficult than launching one.
Can IndiGo Really Challenge Gulf Hubs?
IndiGo’s entry into long-haul markets raised questions about whether a growing number of direct services could gradually reduce the reliance on one-stop connections through Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi.
The developments of the past year suggest that while direct services may offer an attractive alternative on certain city pairs, the Gulf carriers continue to benefit from a combination of geography, network depth, scale and operational resilience that is difficult to replicate quickly.
Geography and Network Effects
Gulf carriers benefit from a geographic advantage. Located between Europe, Asia and Africa, hubs such as Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi are naturally positioned to aggregate traffic flows from multiple origins and destinations.
This helps explain why, despite a record level of Europe-India non-stop capacity, a majority of passengers still travelled via connecting itineraries.
The Gulf carriers have spent decades building extensive networks across India, Europe, Africa and North America. Their value proposition extends beyond transporting passengers between two points. Instead, they offer a broad range of onward connections that increase both convenience and market reach. This fundamental strength of the hub-and-spoke model allows Gulf airlines to serve hundreds of city pairs that would be commercially unviable on a standalone basis.
For a passenger travelling between Mumbai and Manchester, a non-stop flight may be attractive. For travelers from smaller cities connecting onwards to secondary destinations in Europe, a hub remains the more practical option. This network depth explains why the Gulf carriers continue to maintain strong positions despite the growth of direct services.
Scale Matters
Another lesson from the past year is the importance of scale.
IndiGo’s European expansion was built around a relatively small fleet of leased Boeing 787 aircraft. While sufficient to launch new routes, such a fleet offers limited flexibility when operational challenges emerge. Aircraft utilisation, crew availability, maintenance requirements and schedule disruptions all have amplified consequences when fleet numbers are limited.
By contrast, the Gulf carriers operate large and diversified widebody fleets that provide a level of resilience difficult for smaller operators to match. Scale allows them to absorb disruptions, redeploy capacity and maintain schedule integrity across extensive networks.
Resilience Matters
The past year also highlighted the importance of operational resilience.
The closure of Pakistani airspace and wider geopolitical tensions in West Asia resulted in longer routings for Indian carriers. This led to increasing fuel burn, crew costs and block times while reducing aircraft utilisation.
These developments affected airlines across the region. However, their impact was particularly pronounced on a long-haul operation supported by a relatively small fleet. Network depth, fleet scale and operational flexibility are important factors in the ability to adapt to external shocks.
The Story Is Far From Over
None of this should be interpreted as the end of IndiGo’s long-haul ambitions.
The airline’s initial European expansion relied entirely on Boeing 787-9 aircraft damp-leased from Norse Atlantic Airways. While the arrangement allowed IndiGo to enter the market quickly, it was never intended to be a permanent solution.
The next phase of the strategy will be shaped by the arrival of new aircraft. IndiGo has committed to 69 Airbus A321XLRs, whose economics could make thinner long-haul routes more viable by allowing the airline to serve destinations that may not yet justify widebody capacity. The airline is also awaiting deliveries of 60 Airbus A350-900s, expected to begin from 2028, which will provide the scale and flexibility needed to support a broader long-haul network.
The regulatory environment may also work in IndiGo’s favor. The India-UAE bilateral air services agreement caps the number of seats carriers from both countries can operate between the two markets. Successive requests from UAE carriers for additional entitlements have been declined by the Indian government, reflecting a broader desire to strengthen the international position of Indian airlines. Those constraints limit the ability of Gulf carriers to expand capacity indefinitely and create opportunities for Indian airlines to capture a larger share of direct international traffic.
Conclusion
India’s aviation market is expected to continue to grow. Rising incomes, increasing outbound travel and stronger international demand will create opportunities for Indian carriers to expand beyond their traditional short- and medium-haul focus.
IndiGo has demonstrated that it can launch and scale up long-haul operations. The real challenge now lies in building the network depth, fleet scale and operational resilience required to become a genuine alternative to the hub carriers that have dominated India-Europe traffic for decades.
Also read:
Record Passenger Traffic, Yet a Loss: What Really Happened at IndiGo in FY26
IndiGo’s Long-Haul Debut Takes Flight with Mumbai–Manchester Service
IndiGo Long-Haul expansion: What It Means for Gulf Airlines
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