The Adani Group has called on the Central government to allow additional international flying rights as it looks to increase traffic across its airport network, where it is investing billions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades. The request places the infrastructure conglomerate at odds with India’s two largest airlines, Air India and IndiGo, which have urged caution in opening Indian skies to overseas carriers.

Adani Airports Holdings, which operates eight airports across India, has asked the Centre to initiate bilateral negotiations with countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia to expand flying rights. The group believes increased international connectivity would support its ambition to transform major Indian cities into global aviation hubs.

The company recently opened the Navi Mumbai airport to commercial operations on Christmas Day and has outlined plans to invest $11.1 billion by 2030 in terminals, runways, aircraft-handling infrastructure and passenger amenities. Jeet Adani, Director at Adani Airport Holdings, has said these investments are aimed at significantly upgrading airport capacity and service standards.

An Adani Group official said restricting international access could undermine these investments. “This will be a criminal waste of assets being built by airports and penalising the Indian customers who will have to pay higher prices due to lack of flights,” the official said. “Increasing access and options for passengers is a crucial aspect of transforming Indian airports into global hubs, and that should not just depend on when Indian airlines are ready to compete.”

India’s international flying rights are governed by bilateral agreements. Since 2014, the government has adopted a cautious approach to granting additional rights, particularly to West Asian carriers, citing the need to protect Indian airlines and encourage domestic hubs similar to Dubai and Singapore. Under the National Civil Aviation Policy introduced in 2016, additional flying rights are generally not granted unless utilisation by Indian carriers reaches 80 per cent.

This policy has resulted in capacity constraints despite strong growth in passenger demand. In some cases, international routes have not seen seat increases for over a decade, contributing to higher airfares. On the Dubai route, for example, seat capacity was last expanded in 2014, and both Indian and foreign carriers have since exhausted their allotted rights.

Indian airlines remain concerned about intensified competition from well-funded Gulf carriers that operate large fleets of wide-body aircraft and carry a significant proportion of transit passengers to Europe and North America. Air India CEO Campbell Wilson recently said that rapid liberalisation could undermine investments made by Indian carriers, noting that a large share of traffic carried by some foreign airlines from India is onward transit traffic.

While airline operators urge caution, airport developers such as the Adani Group argue that limited international capacity could restrict traffic growth and weaken returns on large-scale infrastructure investments, especially in the absence of aggressive expansion plans by domestic airlines.