Half the flights, ₹28,000 tickets, and a demand list with no numbers

The Andaman Angle · Stories the islands must talk about

This monsoon the islands lost nearly half their weekly flights, and one-way tickets crossed ₹28,000. Trade bodies, the Chamber and political parties all asked for “more flights”. Almost nobody said how many, at what fare, or by when.

By Citizen Reporter, Sri Vijaya Puram (Port Blair)

October 2026 · Andaman Insights citizen journalism series, Story 3

Air India and IndiGo aircraft parked at Veer Savarkar International Airport, Sri Vijaya Puram — Air India and IndiGo aircraft at Veer Savarkar International Airport, Sri Vijaya Puram (2018). Photo: Yercaud-elango, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

In July and August last year, about 62 to 72 flights a week linked the islands to the mainland. In the same months this year, about 36. Those are the figures our MP, Bishnu Pada Ray, put before the Union Civil Aviation Minister on 21 August 2026. One-way tickets to Chennai, Kolkata or Delhi, he wrote, often reach ₹28,000 or more.

The Congress party wants fares back at the old level of about ₹3,000 to ₹4,000. Anyone who has booked a ticket this year knows how far away that is.

Story 2 asked who owns island tourism. This week: the price of getting here, and why the people hurt most have asked for so little.

How the flights went away

The cuts began early. The Andaman Chronicle reported on 1 April that SpiceJet stopped flying Chennai from 20 February, IndiGo suspended its Chennai service from 1 March, and Air India Express withdrew two Chennai flights from 1 March to 14 November. The direct Bhubaneswar link ended, Visakhapatnam was to follow, and Kolkata lost frequencies too.

Night landing was commissioned more than a year ago, but airlines have not significantly expanded their schedules. I could not find any public explanation from the airlines for the island cuts.

What a fare does to an island

We have no road and no railway. For a stretcher patient, the Congress says a mainland flight now costs ₹4.5 to ₹5 lakh. The MP says 10 to 25 tonnes of export-quality fish go by air, and less cargo space means wastage and losses for fishermen.

Tourism feels it next. The Congress says rooms sit empty and boats and taxis stand idle, and young people who borrowed to buy them struggle to repay. The tour operators’ association, AATO, says high fares are reducing arrivals.

Is footfall really falling?

To be fair, the official numbers point the other way. The Lt. Governor said 2025 brought a record 8.13 lakh tourists and that the first half of 2026 was 14.5% ahead. Airport passengers rose from 12.73 lakh in 2022-23 to 16.57 lakh in 2024-25, according to the Administration’s Basic Statistics.

The complaints are about the months after the cuts. I could not find monthly arrival figures for June to September 2026, so neither side’s claim can be checked. That gap is itself part of the problem.

Everyone asked for “more flights”

The trade bodies did act. AATO wrote to the Prime Minister on 23 July and met the Airport Director, the Civil Aviation Secretary and the Chief Secretary in August. The Chamber of Commerce (ANCCI) says it approached the Lt. Governor, two Union Ministers and the airlines. ANTOA met the Lt. Governor on 15 October; he said he would raise flights at a proposed meeting with the Prime Minister.

That is real work. But read the demand lists: more flights, more capacity, night flights, “reasonable” fares. None names a fare that would be reasonable, a minimum number of monsoon flights, or a deadline.

The specific ideas came from elsewhere. Congress leader TSG Bhasker proposed that the Administration buy blocks of seats in advance and sell them to islanders at fixed fares, and earlier asked for 25% of seats at subsidised rates. He also said an earlier charter tender was cancelled. A column in the Andaman Chronicle suggested peak-season fare caps and minimum service levels.

When the Congress called a protest at the airport on 3 September, it dropped its flags because some associations worried it would look political. Bhasker said several affected groups had not come forward strongly. I could not find a report of who turned up. And taxi drivers, boatmen and laundry workers, the people named in every speech, have issued no statement I could find in their own name.

Everyone asked for more flights. Almost nobody said how many, at what fare, or by when.

What the Centre says

In Lok Sabha on 23 July 2026, Minister of State Murlidhar Mohol said airfares have been deregulated since 1994. Under Rule 135 of the Aircraft Rules, airlines set their own fares. The government steps in only in “extraordinary situations”, and has capped fares temporarily for Covid, the Maha Kumbh, after Pahalgam and during the IndiGo disruptions. The DGCA watches fares on 78 routes each month. I could not find whether any island route is one of them.

The promise for December

In late August the Chamber said weekly flights would rise to about 88 in September, 126 in October, 147 in November and more than 175 in December. It did not say who gave it these figures. If they hold, that is good news. They should be checked.

What must change, and who must do it

The Administration

Publish monthly figures for flights, seats and tourist arrivals, so that fares and footfall can be argued with facts.
Explain what happened to the earlier charter tender, and study a seat-block scheme at fixed fares for islanders, patients and students.

Ministry of Civil Aviation and DGCA

Add the island routes to the routes the DGCA monitors, and publish the results.
Treat a monsoon capacity collapse on a route with no road or rail alternative as the “extraordinary situation” the rules already allow for.

Trade bodies and associations

Put numbers in the demand: a minimum weekly flight count through the monsoon, a fare ceiling, a date. Report back publicly in December against the Chamber’s own projection.
Let workers’ groups, taxi, boat and laundry, sit at the table and speak in their own name.

Back to the ticket

₹28,000 one way. The flights may come back for the season, as they do every year. The question is whether next June we will again be writing letters that ask for “more”, or whether someone will have written down what “enough” means.

Next week: NH-4 and the Bharatpur road.

A note from Andaman Insights: We started this platform for impact, not only for revenue. We are islanders writing about our own home. If you are a teacher, a parent or a young person with a story like this, we want to hear it.

Sources

Read more from The Andaman Angle. This is Story 3 of our citizen journalism series. Browse the rest on The Andaman Angle, get the week’s island business news in Andaman Business Weekly, or subscribe free to have each story sent to you.

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