AHMEDABAD— Air India (AI) is struggling to rebuild passenger confidence on the India-UK market more than a year after the fatal crash of its London-bound Boeing 787-8 shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad Airport (AMD).
The June 12, 2025 accident killed 260 people and became a major setback for the airline as it pursued an ambitious international expansion.
The impact has become increasingly visible in passenger traffic data. Cirium figures show that Air India recorded strong year-on-year growth on India-UK services during the first five months of 2025, but passenger numbers began falling from August, with the decline continuing into 2026.
Air India’s UK Traffic Falls
Air India carried 85,024 passengers between India and the UK in August 2025, compared with 96,576 during the same month a year earlier.
September traffic dropped from 100,559 to 81,291 passengers, while October recorded another decline of about 14%.
The passenger decline was larger than the reduction in available capacity. In August and September, Air India reduced seats by only about 4% year-on-year, while passenger numbers fell 11% and 19%, respectively, suggesting weaker demand rather than capacity cuts alone.
There was a brief improvement during the winter travel period. November traffic reached 107,568 passengers, only 0.7% below the previous year’s figure, before the gap widened again to 7% in December, Independent UK reported.
2026 Recovery Stalls
The recovery has remained incomplete in 2026. Air India carried 77,822 passengers on the India-UK market in April, about 27% fewer than in April 2025, even though its seat capacity declined by less than 10%.
May produced a similar result, with passenger numbers falling almost 25% year-on-year to 74,499.
Capacity declined by roughly 11%, again indicating that the fall in traffic was significantly greater than the reduction in seats offered.
Air India also faces stronger competition from foreign carriers. Other international airlines operating between India and the UK recorded passenger growth of 11.9% year-on-year in both November and December 2025, while their capacity increased by roughly 10%.
Air India Rebuilds
Air India has attempted to strengthen its UK network and improve the onboard product as it seeks to restore confidence.
The airline expanded Delhi-London Heathrow (LHR) service to four daily flights from October 2025, adding 1,196 seats each way per week and deploying Airbus A350-900 and Boeing 787-9 aircraft.
However, passenger recovery has coincided with wider operational and financial pressures.
Air India and Air India Express recorded combined losses of $2.33 billion for the financial year ended March 2026, while the group is seeking about $1.5 billion in additional equity from Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines.
The airline says its transformation is improving customer sentiment. Its UK Net Promoter Score rose from -46 in FY24 to +2 in FY26 and reached +13 in FY27 year-to-date, while the London-route score improved from -45 to +21.
Air India is also planning to add about 100 aircraft across the group in 2027 and 2028 while retrofitting 16 Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
The scale of that programme highlights the airline’s attempt to rebuild its international network while addressing the passenger confidence challenge left by the 2025 Ahmedabad crash.
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