Dubai Caps Foreign Flights, Hits Indian Airlines

In a move that will hit Indian carriers hard, Dubai is to restrict the number of flights foreign airlines can operate to one per day into Dubai. The restriction will come into effect from April 20 and remain in place until the end of May.

Federation of Indian Airlines objects to the move

In a recent letter to the Secretary of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Federation of Indian Airlines said that, according to the letter, Dubai authorities have mandated flight cancellations for the Northern Summer 2026 season, which starts from April 20 to May 31, and applies to both Dubai International Airport and the Dubai World Central Al Maktoum airport. During this period, foreign carriers have been restricted to only one rotation per day until further capacity becomes available. The FIA is a grouping of leading Indian airlines, including Air India, IndiGo, and SpiceJet.

“However, it is pertinent to highlight that UAE-based carriers, namely Emirates (EK) and Flydubai (FZ), have already resumed operations to India at pre-disruption levels and are not subject to similar restrictions. This differential treatment has resulted in a significantly uneven playing field,” The FIA letter states.

It adds that the continuation of such restrictions on Indian carriers is already leading to anti-competitive market conditions, operational inefficiencies, substantial revenue losses, passenger inconvenience, and disruption.

The Federation has requested that the Ministry urgently examine the matter and approach the Dubai authorities for the immediate removal of this restriction on Indian carriers, so that Indian carriers can reinstate operations to Dubai at pre-war levels. “In the absence of such relief, we further request the Ministry to consider the implementation of appropriate reciprocal measures to ensure parity and fairness, i.e., restricting the operations of Dubai carriers to the level of cumulative seat capacity deployed by Indian carriers on services to/from Dubai (DXB),” the Federation argues.

Reuters, in a Friday copy, quoted data from Cirium to show how badly Indian carriers will be affected by the latest restrictions imposed by Dubai authorities.

Air India and its budget carrier, Air India Express, have scheduled more than 750 flights to DXB during that period. IndiGo has 481, followed by Saudia and Gulf Air, which planned for 480 and 404, respectively. India’s SpiceJet had planned 61, Reuters said.

IndiGo also told Reuters in a statement that the Middle East crisis and the new Dubai restrictions “significantly constrained” its operations as it had an approved summer schedule of 15 daily flights from India ?to Dubai.

During 2025, 11.9 million Indians traveled through Dubai, making them the largest group of travelers through that airport. India retained its position as the number one country sending the most travelers to Dubai.

Analysts view

Analysts say the latest move by the Dubai authorities was not intended to protect national carriers. The current limitations on flights into/out of Dubai are purely driven by airspace control being under military supervision, they argue. The military is actively sanitizing the airspace before permitting any movement, which has significantly reduced total hourly capacity — down to just a handful of movements per hour.

Within this constrained capacity, slot allocation is simply a function of operational scale. Emirates, having the largest presence, gets priority, followed by flydubai. Other carriers receive slots based on their relative operations.

To call this a protectionist measure will be wrong — it is a safety-driven constraint aimed at safeguarding passengers, aircraft, and operations in an active conflict environment.

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