Which are the largest airports in India? Ranked by passengers, the answer is clear: Delhi is number one by a wide margin, followed by Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata. Together, these six airports handled about 60% of all air passengers in India in 2025-26.
In this guide we rank the top 20 using the official monthly traffic data from the Airports Authority of India (AAI). We look at domestic and international traffic, which airports are growing, which are the most international, and how new airports like Navi Mumbai and Noida (Jewar) change the picture. All numbers are for the Indian financial year April 2025 to March 2026, unless we say otherwise.
Quick answer: the largest airport in India is Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, with 78.7 million passengers in 2025-26. Mumbai is second with 55.3 million and Bengaluru third with 44.5 million.
How We Ranked the Largest Airports in India
An airport can be “large” in different ways: land area, number of runways, terminal size, or passengers. Land and terminal figures are published differently by each operator and are hard to compare fairly. Passenger traffic is different: AAI publishes the same numbers, in the same way, for every airport in India, including the privately run ones such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
So we rank by total passengers (domestic plus international, arriving and departing), using AAI’s March 2026 traffic report, which gives full-year figures for April 2025 to March 2026. For the latest trend we also use AAI’s August 2026 report (April to August 2026). AAI notes that its figures come from the airports and may be revised slightly later.
Top 20 Largest Airports in India by Passengers (2025-26)
| Rank | Airport (city) | Passengers 2025-26 | Change vs 2024-25 | Share of India |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Delhi (Indira Gandhi International) | 78,701,971 | -0.7% | 18.7% |
| 2 | Mumbai (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International) | 55,290,095 | +0.3% | 13.2% |
| 3 | Bengaluru (Kempegowda International) | 44,470,035 | +6.2% | 10.6% |
| 4 | Hyderabad (Rajiv Gandhi International) | 30,483,885 | +3.4% | 7.3% |
| 5 | Chennai | 23,017,324 | +2.7% | 5.5% |
| 6 | Kolkata | 21,102,741 | -3.3% | 5.0% |
| 7 | Ahmedabad | 13,822,287 | +2.9% | 3.3% |
| 8 | Kochi | 11,302,552 | +1.5% | 2.7% |
| 9 | Pune | 11,005,988 | +5.2% | 2.6% |
| 10 | Guwahati | 6,622,784 | +7.5% | 1.6% |
| 11 | Goa (Dabolim) | 6,126,944 | -15.4% | 1.5% |
| 12 | Lucknow | 6,065,957 | -5.8% | 1.4% |
| 13 | Jaipur | 5,627,147 | -7.1% | 1.3% |
| 14 | Goa (Mopa) | 5,376,516 | +15.8% | 1.3% |
| 15 | Bhubaneswar | 5,130,834 | +6.0% | 1.2% |
| 16 | Thiruvananthapuram | 4,694,206 | -4.0% | 1.1% |
| 17 | Patna | 4,386,376 | +14.8% | 1.0% |
| 18 | Varanasi | 4,343,347 | +7.8% | 1.0% |
| 19 | Indore | 4,244,999 | +12.9% | 1.0% |
| 20 | Chandigarh | 3,926,519 | -5.4% | 0.9% |
Source: Airports Authority of India, traffic news, March 2026, Annexure III C (total passengers, April 2025 to March 2026). Share of India: FlyingFuel calculation against AAI’s grand total of 420,089,356 passengers.
The Big Six, One by One
1. Delhi: Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL)
Delhi is India’s largest airport by a long way, with 78.7 million passengers in 2025-26, almost one in every five air passengers in the country. Traffic was flat (-0.7%) compared with the year before, but that is from a very high base. Delhi is also India’s biggest international gateway, with 21.5 million international passengers, and the main hub for Air India and a key base for IndiGo.
Delhi started the new financial year strongly: from April to August 2026 it handled 32.5 million passengers, up 5.5%, while most other big airports were down over the same months.
2. Mumbai: Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (BOM)
Mumbai handled 55.3 million passengers in 2025-26 (+0.3%), including 16.3 million international passengers, second only to Delhi. The airport is famously tight on space, which is one big reason Mumbai needed a second airport. Navi Mumbai International Airport opened for flights on 25 December 2025.
3. Bengaluru: Kempegowda International Airport (BLR)
Bengaluru was the fastest-growing of the big three in 2025-26, up 6.2% to 44.5 million passengers. Most of its traffic is domestic: 37.2 million domestic and 7.2 million international passengers.
4. Hyderabad: Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (HYD)
Hyderabad handled 30.5 million passengers (+3.4%), with 5.5 million of them on international flights. AAI also lists Hyderabad’s old Begumpet airport separately, but it carries only a tiny number of passengers today.
5. Chennai International Airport (MAA)
Chennai handled 23.0 million passengers (+2.7%), and about 27% of them were international, the same share as Delhi. Chennai is run by AAI itself, unlike the four bigger airports, which are run by private companies.
6. Kolkata: Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport (CCU)
Kolkata is the gateway to East and Northeast India. It handled 21.1 million passengers, down 3.3% on the year, and only about 11% of them flew international.
Domestic vs International: Who Flies Where
About 80.6 million of India’s 420.1 million air passengers in 2025-26 were international, roughly 19%. Here is how the split looks at the largest airports:
| Airport | Domestic | International | International share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delhi | 57.2 million | 21.5 million | 27% |
| Mumbai | 38.9 million | 16.3 million | 30% |
| Bengaluru | 37.2 million | 7.2 million | 16% |
| Hyderabad | 25.0 million | 5.5 million | 18% |
| Chennai | 16.9 million | 6.1 million | 27% |
| Kolkata | 18.8 million | 2.3 million | 11% |
| Ahmedabad | 11.4 million | 2.4 million | 17% |
| Kochi | 6.0 million | 5.3 million | 47% |
Source: AAI traffic news, March 2026, Annexures III A, B and C (2025-26). Shares: FlyingFuel calculation.
Kerala: India’s most international airports
The most international airports in India are in Kerala, because of the large number of people from the state who work in the Gulf. In 2025-26, about 76% of Kozhikode (Calicut) airport’s 3.9 million passengers flew international, along with 53% at Thiruvananthapuram and 47% at Kochi. Kochi alone handled 5.3 million international passengers, almost as many as Hyderabad.
Two-Airport Cities: Goa, Mumbai and Delhi NCR
A few Indian cities now have two airports, and looking at only one of them hides the full picture.
- Goa: Dabolim (6.1 million, -15.4%) and the newer Mopa airport (5.4 million, +15.8%) together handled about 11.5 million passengers in 2025-26. Combined, Goa would rank just above Pune. Passengers are clearly shifting from the old airport to the new one.
- Mumbai: from April to August 2026, the main airport handled 20.8 million passengers (-8.0%), while Navi Mumbai added 2.4 million. Together that is about 23.1 million, about 2.6% more than the main airport handled alone a year earlier (our calculation from AAI data).
- Delhi NCR: Noida International Airport at Jewar opened for commercial flights in June 2026. AAI also lists Hindon airport near Ghaziabad, a small civil terminal that handled 1.1 million passengers in 2025-26, up from about 84,000 the year before.
2026 So Far: A Slower Year
AAI’s August 2026 report shows that air traffic in India has been slightly down in the first five months of the 2026-27 financial year: about 166.1 million passengers from April to August 2026, 2.4% fewer than in the same months of 2025. AAI’s report does not explain why.
| Airport | Apr-Aug 2026 | Apr-Aug 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delhi | 32.5 million | 30.8 million | +5.5% |
| Mumbai | 20.8 million | 22.5 million | -8.0% |
| Bengaluru | 18.0 million | 18.2 million | -1.2% |
| Hyderabad | 11.5 million | 13.0 million | -11.5% |
| Chennai | 8.7 million | 9.7 million | -10.6% |
| Kolkata | 8.1 million | 8.6 million | -5.9% |
| Ahmedabad | 5.3 million | 5.6 million | -4.4% |
| Pune | 4.6 million | 4.5 million | +1.0% |
| Kochi | 4.4 million | 4.8 million | -6.7% |
| Navi Mumbai | 2.4 million | Not open | New |
Source: AAI traffic news, August 2026, Annexure III C.
The ranking itself has not changed: Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata are still the top six, in the same order.
Fast Risers Outside the Top 10
Some smaller airports grew quickly in 2025-26, often thanks to new routes from airlines and the government’s regional connectivity scheme:
- Patna: 4.4 million passengers, up 14.8%.
- Indore: 4.2 million, up 12.9%.
- Varanasi: 4.3 million, up 7.8%.
- Guwahati: 6.6 million, up 7.5%, the fastest growth among the top ten.
- Darbhanga: 0.77 million, up 48%. A small airport served under the UDAN scheme.
- Gorakhpur: 1.1 million, up 29%.
For more on how smaller airports get flights, see our guides to the UDAN scheme and regional airlines in India.
Who Runs India’s Largest Airports?
AAI’s traffic report groups airports by how they are run. The biggest group by far is the joint-venture (JV) airports: Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kannur and Nagpur. These seven airports handled 224.7 million passengers in 2025-26, more than half (53%) of India’s total, by our calculation from the AAI data.
| Group in AAI report | Airports (examples) | Passengers 2025-26 |
|---|---|---|
| Joint-venture international airports | Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kannur, Nagpur | 224.7 million |
| AAI international airports | Chennai, Kolkata, Goa (Dabolim), Bhubaneswar, Srinagar, Varanasi and others (18 in total) | 85.3 million |
| PPP international airports | Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram | 39.4 million |
| Customs airports | Pune, Patna, Indore, Chandigarh, Bagdogra, Visakhapatnam and others | 37.0 million |
| State government / private international | Goa (Mopa), Navi Mumbai, Shirdi | 6.6 million |
Source: AAI traffic news, March 2026, Annexure III C. The remaining passengers used domestic and smaller airports.
Chennai and Kolkata are the largest airports that AAI still runs itself. Pune, ninth in the country by passengers, is listed by AAI as a customs airport.
The Largest Airport in Each Region
- North India: Delhi (78.7 million). Next come Lucknow (6.1 million), Jaipur (5.6 million) and Varanasi (4.3 million).
- West India: Mumbai (55.3 million), followed by Ahmedabad (13.8 million), Pune (11.0 million) and the two Goa airports (11.5 million together).
- South India: Bengaluru (44.5 million), followed by Hyderabad (30.5 million), Chennai (23.0 million) and Kochi (11.3 million).
- East India: Kolkata (21.1 million), followed by Bhubaneswar (5.1 million), Patna (4.4 million) and Bagdogra (3.7 million), which serves Siliguri and Darjeeling.
- Northeast India: Guwahati (6.6 million), by far the largest in the region, followed by Agartala (1.5 million) and Imphal (1.4 million).
- Central India: Indore (4.2 million), followed by Raipur (2.8 million) and Bhopal (1.6 million).
Source: AAI traffic news, March 2026 (total passengers, 2025-26).
How India Compares With the World
In the Airports Council International (ACI) World ranking for calendar year 2025, Delhi was the 11th busiest airport in the world with 78.1 million passengers, behind Atlanta (106.3 million) and Dubai (95.2 million). ACI counts by calendar year, so its Delhi figure is slightly different from AAI’s financial-year number. See the full list of the busiest airports in the world. India’s airports are growing, though, and the new Navi Mumbai and Noida airports are designed to expand in phases over the next decades.
India’s two biggest airline groups are IndiGo and Air India. See our guides to the IndiGo fleet and the Air India fleet.
Key Takeaways
- Delhi is India’s largest airport by passengers: 78.7 million in 2025-26, 18.7% of the national total.
- Mumbai (55.3 million) and Bengaluru (44.5 million) are second and third, followed by Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata.
- The top six airports carry about 60% of all air passengers in India.
- Kerala’s airports are the most international; Kozhikode is about 76% international.
- Indian air traffic was down 2.4% from April to August 2026, but Delhi grew 5.5%.
- New airports in Navi Mumbai, Goa (Mopa) and Noida are starting to share traffic with older ones.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is the largest airport in India?
By passengers, Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. It handled 78.7 million passengers in April 2025 to March 2026, according to the Airports Authority of India, about 18.7% of all air passengers in India.
What are the top 5 airports in India?
By passengers in 2025-26: Delhi (78.7 million), Mumbai (55.3 million), Bengaluru (44.5 million), Hyderabad (30.5 million) and Chennai (23.0 million).
Which is the second-largest airport in India?
Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, with 55.3 million passengers in 2025-26. Mumbai now also has a second airport, Navi Mumbai, which opened for flights on 25 December 2025.
How many passengers did Indian airports handle in 2025-26?
About 420.1 million passengers in total (domestic and international) from April 2025 to March 2026, up 1.9% on the year before, according to AAI. About 80.6 million of them were international passengers.
Which Indian airport has the most international passengers?
Delhi, with 21.5 million international passengers in 2025-26, followed by Mumbai (16.3 million), Bengaluru (7.2 million), Chennai (6.1 million), Hyderabad (5.5 million) and Kochi (5.3 million).
Which Indian airport is the most international?
Among the big airports, Kozhikode (Calicut) in Kerala: about 76% of its 3.9 million passengers in 2025-26 flew international, mostly to the Gulf. Thiruvananthapuram (53%) and Kochi (47%) are also highly international.
Is Bengaluru airport bigger than Hyderabad airport?
By passengers, yes. Bengaluru handled 44.5 million passengers in 2025-26 and Hyderabad 30.5 million, according to AAI.
Where does this airport data come from?
From the Airports Authority of India (AAI), which publishes airport-wise passenger numbers every month in its traffic news. It covers all Indian airports, including private ones like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. AAI uses the Indian financial year (April to March).
They are built to. Navi Mumbai handled 2.4 million passengers in April to August 2026, its first months of full operation. Noida International Airport opened in June 2026 with a first phase for 12 million passengers a year and a plan for 70 million. Both are still far smaller than the big six for now.
Featured image: FlyingFuel graphic using a photo of Terminal 3 at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport by Ravi Dwivedi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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