For a certain class of Indians, carping about a bad flight is as commonplace as bemoaning Mumbai’s shirt-soaking humidity or New Delhi’s putrid air. They often direct their ire at Indigo, largely because it’s the dominant local carrier.

The number of complaints against Indigo doubled in the nine months to February. But at 0.2 per 1,000 passengers, the airline fared far better than its rivals, as we wrote in April. An angry flyer, however, couldn’t care less about a statistic that doesn’t speak to her own experience.

But a report released by the International Air Transport Association, or IATA, a few days ago makes clear what few want to admit: Indigo’s rise has coincided with—even if it isn’t entirely responsible for—sizeable savings for passengers.

Source: IATA

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Since 2011, the average domestic airfare has fallen by over 20%, after adjusting for inflation, and international trips are now cheaper by almost twice as much.

Cheaper jet fuel has certainly helped.

Source: IATA

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This particularly matters to Indian airlines since fuel is responsible for almost half their operating expenses, thanks to higher taxes, compared with less than a third globally. There’s another silver lining: the average Indian commercial plane is 7.3 years old, or half as old as its global peers. This gives the country’s carriers one of the world’s most fuel-efficient fleets.

Another factor contributing to the falling fares is the rapid addition of aircraft. The number of commercial planes registered in India has more than doubled over the past decade to 860, growing faster than the global average. Indigo is responsible for much of this, controlling over half the seat capacity. (The airline’s market value, at almost Rs 2.17 lakh crore, has outpaced the Nifty 100 index by 3X in five years.)

In 2024, aircraft deliveries to India reached an all-time high of 108. Another 740 will be handed over in the next five years.

Source: IATA

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Indigo has influenced pricing in other ways, too. No-frills airlines, of which Indigo is one of the world’s best examples, accounted for half the total seat capacity in 2014. A decade later, their share had shot up to over two-thirds, helped in no small measure by full-service carrier Jet Airways’ collapse in 2019.

Even so, nitpicking about the cost of flying in India doesn’t take much effort.