How Delhi and Mumbai airport congestion still weighs on Air India’s punctuality

Even as Air India climbs global punctuality rankings, the airline says congestion at its two biggest hubs remains a persistent drag on performance. Describing the challenges of operating one of the country’s largest hub-and-spoke networks, Air India said its operations are often affected by congestion and air traffic control restrictions at Delhi and Mumbai airports, which can have a cascading impact across the network.

Aviation analytics firm Cirium ranked Air India the world’s fourth most on-time airline for June, with an on-time arrival rate of 86.85% across 15,135 tracked flights — behind Saudia, Korean Air and Aeromexico, but ahead of Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Turkish Airlines. The airline’s on-time departure rate stood at 86.23%, with a completion factor of 99.7%, meaning almost all scheduled flights operated as planned.

Domestically, India’s aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, recorded the Air India Group’s on-time performance at 74.5% in May across ten major airports, placing it third behind IndiGo and Akasa Air. Within that data, Air India’s punctuality ranged widely by city — from 89.5% of flights departing on time at Chennai to just 62.4% at Lucknow.

Air India attributed its broader improvement to investments in “operational resilience, improved network planning, and enhanced execution,” even as hub congestion at Delhi and Mumbai continues to complicate network-wide scheduling.