Air India Express plans to expand its fleet to 110 aircraft by the end of this fiscal year, adding 20 new planes following its merger with AIX Connect, senior airline officials said.
The carrier is optimising its network as part of the Air India group with a strategy to connect passengers from smaller cities and towns with metro cities, particularly focusing on international routes.
“We have rationalised the network between the two carriers to focus more on the tier two, tier three-Metro to non-Metro connectivity, and also smaller towns to the Gulf and Middle East,” Aloke Singh, managing director of Air India Express, told media on Friday.
The airline has begun integrating its network with Air India to provide seamless connections. “A passenger can buy an Air India ticket, which will have, for instance, London-Delhi, and then Delhi-Ranchi on Air India Express, but they will get one document, one ticket within Air India,” Singh explained.
Air India Express, which currently operates 525 daily flights and served 2.4 million passengers in FY 2025 across 55 stations till now, is expanding its international footprint. “On our regional international network, we will primarily connect Tier 2 and tier 3 cities to destinations in the Gulf, Middle East, Southeast Asia, and eventually South Asia, with plans to expand to the Far East in the coming years,” Singh said.
{{/usCountry}}Air India Express, which currently operates 525 daily flights and served 2.4 million passengers in FY 2025 across 55 stations till now, is expanding its international footprint. “On our regional international network, we will primarily connect Tier 2 and tier 3 cities to destinations in the Gulf, Middle East, Southeast Asia, and eventually South Asia, with plans to expand to the Far East in the coming years,” Singh said.
{{/usCountry}}The airline’s Chief Commercial Officer Ankur Garg said they are planning to launch services to Bangkok from tier-2 cities in India and Phuket from metro cities. However, Singh emphasized a focused approach: “We aim to remain focused and not spread ourselves too thin.”
The integration has already shown positive results. “When we started the integration exercise, we made small tweaks to the network...we tried to provide domestic international connectivity and saw a little bump up in the carriage,” Singh said.