India’s busiest winter travel season has arrived with a mixed message for flyers. On one hand, Air India Express is rolling out new flights from Nagpur, Pune and Delhi, deepening domestic and Gulf connectivity. On the other, Pune Airport has become a symbol of how fast-growing demand is overwhelming airport infrastructure, with a parking-bay logjam this week delaying even on‑time Air India Express flights.
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From early November 2025 to now, a cluster of developments around Nagpur and Pune airports, Air India Express and rival IndiGo paints a sharp picture of where Indian aviation is headed next: aggressive network expansion sitting atop fragile ground infrastructure.
December 2025: Air India Express Network Expansion Takes Off
On 8 November, Air India Express announced a major winter schedule push that put Nagpur firmly on its network map. The airline confirmed it would operate twice‑daily Nagpur–Bengaluru flights from 1 December 2025, alongside new Delhi–Abu Dhabi (4x weekly) and Pune–Abu Dhabi (3x weekly) services starting 2 December. With these additions, the carrier’s network rises to around 60 destinations, with five new “stations” added in just two months.
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According to the published schedule, the Nagpur–Bengaluru route features:
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Morning and late-evening departures in both directions
Nagpur departures around mid‑morning and late evening
Bengaluru departures in the early morning and early evening
This design allows same‑day business trips and convenient one‑stop connections over Bengaluru to Gulf and Southeast Asian destinations.
Air India Express has framed this as part of a wider strategy to build Bengaluru as its largest domestic hub, with more than 530 weekly flights from the city, including services to secondary Indian cities like Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Jodhpur and Udaipur, plus international routes to Bangkok, Jeddah, Kuwait and Riyadh.
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Nagpur–Bengaluru Flights Inaugurated: Orange City Joins the Xpress Grid
On 1 December, the first Nagpur–Bengaluru flights took off, marked by a ceremony at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport where early passengers received commemorative boarding passes.
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AviationA2Z and trade publications report that the twice-daily service gives Nagpur passengers one‑stop access via Bengaluru to 29 domestic and 7 international destinations on Air India Express, turning a single new city-pair into an entire web of connections.
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The timing is strategic. Nagpur handled about 2.9 million passengers in FY 2024–25, making it the 27th‑busiest airport in India, with especially heavy traffic on routes to Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and Bengaluru.
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Yet its long‑term potential as a central India hub has been constrained by infrastructure and a lack of sustained international links. Recent years saw some overseas routes launch and then quietly disappear.
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By anchoring Nagpur into its Bengaluru hub, Air India Express is essentially plugging the “Zero Mile City” into its fast-growing point‑to‑hub network at a moment when demand is already robust.
Nagpur Airport: New Flights, New Owner, New Ambitions
The new Nagpur flights are not happening in isolation. Behind them is a deeper transformation of the airport itself.
GMR Airports to Take Over in December
On 18 November, GMR Airports Limited confirmed it will formally assume operations of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport in December 2025, adding a fifth airport to its Indian portfolio. Industry experts expect the privatisation to accelerate upgrades, attract new airlines and expand both domestic and international services, positioning Nagpur as a key regional hub for central India.
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GMR’s plans, detailed on the company’s site and in earlier financial filings, include:
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A modern passenger terminal designed initially for ~4 million passengers annually, scalable far higher
A cargo facility capable of handling around 20,000 metric tonnes
A new ATC tower and significant airside and landside upgrades
Previous reporting indicates GMR ultimately aims to lift Nagpur’s capacity towards 30 million passengers a year, a massive jump from today’s sub‑3‑million level.
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More Carriers and Routes on the Way
The domestic route map from Nagpur is also set to widen. A 30 November report in The Live Nagpur notes:
The Live Nagpur
After privatisation, flight operations are expected to “see a notable rise” by the end of December.
Akasa Air has already secured a time slot at Nagpur and is likely to start services to either Pune or Bengaluru.
Air India Express is “gearing up” to launch a Nagpur–Navi Mumbai flight early in the new year and is also considering routes to Delhi and others.
Under the government’s UDAN / Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), new regional flights from Nagpur to Raipur, Bhopal and Patna are anticipated.
A dedicated cargo service and at least two additional international flights are expected in 2026.
Low‑cost carrier IndiGo is also scheduled to start Nagpur–Navi Mumbai flights from 25 December 2025, the opening day of Navi Mumbai International Airport, with bookings opened via online travel platforms in mid‑November.
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Taken together, Air India Express’s Nagpur–Bengaluru services, expected Nagpur–Navi Mumbai links and GMR’s expansion plan indicate that Nagpur is quietly shifting from a peripheral station to a multi‑airline growth node in central India.
Air India Express Adds Gulf Capacity From Pune and Delhi
While Nagpur grabs headlines for new domestic connectivity, Pune and Delhi are the launchpads for Air India Express’s latest Gulf expansion.
From 2 December 2025, the airline has begun operating:
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Delhi–Abu Dhabi: 4 flights per week
Pune–Abu Dhabi: 3 flights per week
The Pune–Abu Dhabi flight is scheduled as a night departure (around 20:50 local), returning from Abu Dhabi in the late evening and reaching Pune early the next morning, giving business and VFR (visiting friends and relatives) travellers usable round‑trip patterns without losing working days.
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For Air India Express, these new Abu Dhabi routes strengthen its long‑standing Gulf focus just as India’s diaspora and leisure demand to the UAE remain strong. For passengers in Pune, which has historically had limited long‑haul options, the new service adds a direct Gulf gateway and one‑stop access further into the Middle East and Europe via UAE hub connections.
Pune Airport’s Parking Bay Crunch: When On‑Time Flights Still Can’t Park
This week, however, Pune showed the darker side of India’s aviation boom.
Air India Express Flight Lands on Time — and Then Waits
On 4 December 2025, Air India Express issued a statement describing how its early‑morning Delhi–Pune flight landed exactly on schedule at 06:55 hrs but could not be given a parking bay, because all 10 bays at Pune Airport were already occupied.
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The airline said the bay lock‑up was caused by another carrier’s aircraft being stuck on the ground due to “technical reasons or experiencing delays”, which in turn triggered a cascade of delays to its own schedule, including the onward Pune–Indore service.
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Passengers reported spending hours on board or in queues as the airport struggled to juggle arrivals, departures and diverted flights. Similar accounts surfaced on social media and in local media coverage of the Pune chaos.
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IndiGo Disruptions Amplify the Bottleneck
The Pune incident is inseparable from the nationwide operational crisis at IndiGo, India’s largest airline. Over the past week, IndiGo has cancelled hundreds of flights after mis‑judging the impact of new, stricter Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) norms for pilots that took effect on 1 November.
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Government and media data show:
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IndiGo cancelled over 1,200 flights in November, mostly due to crew and FDTL constraints.
On some days this week, more than 200 flights a day were cancelled nationwide.
On‑time performance in late November plunged into the mid‑30% range.
At Pune, Times of India reporting notes that IndiGo aircraft waiting for available crew remained on the ground for extended periods, occupying most of the airport’s 10 bays and forcing other flights to wait, divert or even return to origin.
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As a result, on 5 December, Pune saw:
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Cancellation of 16 IndiGo flights (eight arrivals, eight departures)
Delays to 19+ other flights
Passengers on multiple airlines stuck inside aircraft for up to four hours after landing
At least one flight forced to return to its origin airport because it could not get a bay
Air India Express’s punctual flight becoming stranded in the sky and on the apron is therefore part of a much broader system failure, where a single airline’s network crisis cascades across capacity‑constrained airports.
Pune Airport Has Outgrown Its Design
The chaos is happening at an airport already operating beyond its design envelope. Pune Airport handled 10.46 million passengers and nearly 69,000 aircraft movements in FY 2024–25, up almost 10% year‑on‑year and above its designed annual capacity of 9.5 million passengers.
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The apron has space for about 10 aircraft parking bays, which routinely handle close to 200 flight movements per day.
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Aviation experts have long warned that such a tight apron layout leaves no margin when irregular operations hit.
In August, airport authorities announced plans to use 13 acres of additional land to build five more parking bays, a remote bay and a new cargo terminal at a cost of roughly ₹100 crore. The expansion is expected to support 50–60 extra flight movements per day, easing congestion and enabling more routes.
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Pune has also activated winter SOPs for 2025–26, including more seating, ensuring food availability at F&B outlets, and instructing airlines to clearly inform passengers of reasons for delays, while ground staff are told to be extra vigilant in managing taxiing aircraft and bays.
The Times of India
But the events of this week suggest that procedures can only go so far when physical infrastructure — particularly parking bays — is so tight, and when one airline’s fleet and rostering crisis spills over onto everyone else.
Indian Aviation Demand Is Surging Faster Than Capacity
The Pune and Nagpur stories sit within a wider national backdrop:
Domestic air passenger traffic in India reached 142.8 lakh (14.28 million) in October 2025, up about 4.5–5% year‑on‑year and nearly 13% month‑on‑month, according to ICRA and ETTravelWorld.
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ICRA maintains a “Stable” outlook on Indian aviation, projecting domestic traffic growth of 4–6% in FY 2026, even after factoring in disruptions, grounded aircraft and global headwinds.
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IATA meanwhile has highlighted that Indian domestic traffic through 2025 has often been growing at over 10% year‑on‑year, making India one of the fastest‑expanding large aviation markets in the world.
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At the same time, large parts of the fleet remain grounded due to engine issues, and airlines are grappling with pilot and cabin crew shortages, rising lease costs and regulatory changes.
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In other words: demand is racing ahead, while both airline and airport capacity are trying to catch up.
New Mega Airports and Big‑Ticket Investments
Recognising these bottlenecks, both private operators and the government are pouring money into airport infrastructure.
Navi Mumbai International Airport
Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) — inaugurated in October and set to open for commercial flights on 25 December 2025 — is designed to ultimately handle 90 million passengers a year and over 3 million tonnes of cargo when fully built out.
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Air India Express has confirmed it will start daily flights from Navi Mumbai to Delhi and Bengaluru from opening day, with plans to ramp up to twice daily from 1 January 2026.
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Alongside it, Akasa Air and IndiGo are each launching multiple routes, including Nagpur–Navi Mumbai, and other key city pairs such as Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Mangaluru, Kochi and Goa.
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Adani’s ₹1.25 Lakh Crore Airport Bet
In parallel, the Adani Group — which operates eight airports including the upcoming Navi Mumbai hub — plans to invest around $15 billion (₹1.25 lakh crore) by 2030, targeting annual passenger capacity of 200 million across its network. The expansion includes additional terminals, taxiways and a new runway at Navi Mumbai, plus upgrades at Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Thiruvananthapuram, Lucknow and Guwahati.
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These mega‑projects underscore that while mid‑sized airports like Pune are struggling today, a wave of new capacity is coming — though not always in the locations where pressure is currently tightest.
What This Means for Flyers in Nagpur, Pune, Bengaluru and Beyond
For Nagpur Flyers
More choice and better timings: Twice‑daily Air India Express flights to Bengaluru give morning and evening options, ideal for business trips and same‑day connections.
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Improved connectivity: Via Bengaluru, Nagpur passengers can tap into dozens of domestic cities and several international destinations on a single ticket.
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New routes on the horizon: Expected Akasa Air services, likely Nagpur–Navi Mumbai and potential RCS routes to Raipur, Bhopal and Patna will thicken the route map over the next year.
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For Pune Flyers
New Gulf option: Air India Express’s thrice‑weekly Pune–Abu Dhabi flight provides a new non‑stop to the UAE and one‑stop access deeper into the Middle East and Europe.
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Expect short‑term pain: Until the additional five bays and runway extension are completed, congestion will remain a real risk, particularly during disruptions at IndiGo or in bad winter weather.
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Practical tips if you’re flying from or via Pune this winter:
Arrive earlier than usual — especially for early‑morning departures, when bays are tight and delays from the previous night can cascade.
Monitor your flight status and gate via airline apps and social channels; schedule changes may be frequent.
Keep essentials in cabin baggage, not checked luggage, in case aircraft are held at remote bays or baggage retrieval is disrupted by cancellations.
For Indian Travellers Generally
The current turbulence is not a sign that aviation is shrinking; it is a symptom of growing pains in a system that is, overall, expanding rapidly:
Airlines like Air India Express are adding routes and new stations at a brisk pace.
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New airports such as Navi Mumbai and upgraded hubs like Nagpur are coming online.
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Regulators are tightening safety‑related rules (like FDTL) even when this causes near‑term disruption.
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For now, passengers may need to trade some punctuality for long‑term safety and capacity gains — but as more infrastructure opens and airlines recalibrate schedules and staffing, the system should gradually stabilise.
Outlook: Nagpur Rises, Pune Waits, India Keeps Climbing
Since early November 2025, three threads have defined the story around Air India Express, Nagpur and Pune:
A sharp network expansion by Air India Express, using Bengaluru and soon Navi Mumbai as powerful hubs and pulling Nagpur and Pune closer into its web.
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Structural upgrades at Nagpur Airport under GMR, which could turn the “Zero Mile City” into a central India aviation powerhouse over the next decade.
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Acute congestion at Pune, where a tiny apron and surging traffic meant that even an on‑time Air India Express flight couldn’t find a place to park.
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In the near term, this contrast will remain stark: Nagpur is in “build and add” mode, Pune in “cope and stretch” mode.
But viewed nationwide, both are part of the same story — an Indian aviation market that continues to expand, occasionally chaotically, toward a future of far denser connectivity. For travellers, that means more choice, more non‑stops and more hubs — but also, at least for now, the need for patience when the system’s seams start to show.
