Analysis Reports

India's two largest airlines enter 2026 looking to make more progress on their ambitious growth agendas, but the airlines - and their CEOs - will have to contend with heightened scrutiny from regulators and their own boards.

Both IndiGo and Air India experienced high-profile setbacks in 2025. For Air India, the investigation continues into the crash of flight AI171 in Jun-2025, while the airline's fleet upgrade and financial turnaround are taking longer than expected.

For IndiGo, a network meltdown in early Dec-2025 brought the ire of regulators and politicians, meaning the airline will likely take a more cautious approach to growth this year.

The two airlines are both led by CEOs who were hired from overseas airlines within two months of each other in 2022: Campbell Wilson at Air India, and Pieter Elbers at IndiGo.

They are highly regarded executives in the airline industry who were sought out to lead India's airlines through crucial growth phases, but they are now facing increasing political and public pressure.

At the CAPA Airline Leader Summit - World in Dec-2025, a rare, candid boardroom-style conversation brought together airline leaders operating at the sharp end of today's volatility cycle.

Moderated by WestJet Vice Chairman Alex Cruz, the discussion featured Anko van der Werff (SAS Scandinavian Airlines), Martin Gauss (Gulf Air) and Campbell Wilson (Air India), each navigating markedly different geographies yet confronting strikingly similar structural pressures.

The backdrop is unforgiving: slowing global growth, persistently high interest rates, elevated fuel and financing costs, currency instability and deepening geopolitical fragmentation. Layered on top are acute supply chain constraints - from delayed aircraft deliveries to extended engine shop visits - that continue to cap growth and inflate unit costs.

Against this landscape, the panel explored how airlines with traditionally thin margins can protect balance sheets, sustain networks and retain strategic optionality.

Drawing on current, real-world challenges, the session examined fuel and FX risk management in an era of amplified price swings; inflationary pressures across labour, maintenance and airport charges; and the emerging reality that geopolitics increasingly shapes network economics.

The executives also addressed the growing divergence between mature markets facing demand fragility and emerging markets - most notably South Asia and parts of the Middle East - where structural growth remains intact but operational and political risks are higher.

This session offers senior aviation leaders a grounded, experience-led perspective on how airline CEOs are recalibrating long-term planning, capital allocation and fleet utilisation to survive - and selectively invest - through a prolonged period of uncertainty.

As 2026 begins, CAPA - Centre for Aviation presents a snapshot of the global airline industry in 22 numbers.

The airline industry has demonstrated its resilience in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and exceeding its 2019 levels of traffic, capacity, jets in service, and financial returns.

Nevertheless, the return on capital generated by the world's airlines remains below the cost of capital at a time when huge investment is needed to finance the green transition.

Moreover, macro uncertainties are gathering in the form of geopolitical developments, conflicts, world trade and artificial intelligence.

In addition, industry supply chain uncertainties - including the availability of aircraft, engines, labour and infrastructure - remain challenging.

Based on a presentation given at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit World in Lisbon in Dec-2025, with updated numbers as appropriate, this graphic report summarises a range of key aviation metrics in 22 headline numbers.

Belatedly there was an outbreak of airport-related M&A activity in the final quarter of 2025, initially with major transactions in Europe and then as widespread as Brazil, Russia, Northern England, Poland, Belgium, Angola, Guinea, Egypt, and even the United States, although that was only a retail concessions deal.

They are detailed in this report.

But while the outlook rapidly changed for the better then, the stark realisation is that (to use the 'Chinese proverb/curse' that isn't) we "live in interesting times" now. And those times are not the ones that investors feel comfortable in.

Quite apart from the rolling impediments to long term investment in the sector already arising from 'forever wars' and the uncertainty of the global economic cycle, we now have to contend with an expansionist United States.

The outlook for the entire year and beyond in the airport sector may well be determined by what happens in the coming days and weeks.

The aircraft interiors sector in 2025 was defined by momentum, convergence and a clear re-ordering of long-established hierarchies.

Connectivity, cabins and comfort are no longer parallel workstreams, but increasingly interdependent pillars shaping airline competitiveness.

This latest CAPA - Centre for Aviation interiors report captures a year in which strategic decisions made at the cabin level signalled broader shifts in airline priorities, supplier power and passenger expectations.

At the centre of the story is inflight connectivity. The pace and scale of Starlink's ascent has been without precedent, transforming what was once a fragmented IFC market into a race for LEO-led performance and simplicity.

Beyond connectivity, 2025 also brought meaningful evolution in IFE and seating.

Safran Passenger Innovations' post-COVID surge reshaped the Airbus widebody IFE landscape, while the seat market continued its gradual diversification. Chinese-manufactured seats consolidated their domestic foothold, lightweight innovators such as Expliseat, gained blue-chip customers, and premium economy continued its steady march toward global ubiquity, with new regions and flagship airlines finally committing to the product.

This report draws on CAPA - Centre for Aviation's Aircraft Interiors Database and News coverage to map how 2025 quietly - but fundamentally - reset the trajectory of the interiors market.

US airlines felt positive about the year ahead in Jan-2025, with some executives predicting record financial performances for the year.

Fast forward to Jan-2026 and the year is bookended by airlines being forced to revise their first and fourth quarter financial forecasts, after the the US government introduced sweeping tariffs and forced airlines to cut flights as the busy holiday season approached.

After a whirlwind year in which they had to quickly make adjustments to their expectations, US airlines feel reasonably positive about 2026.

Additionally, Frontier and Spirit could possibly be close to finally announcing a merger after numerous attempts for a combination that could stabilise the ultra low cost model in the US.

The first week of January marks the start of the new year. The start of the year has also witnessed a number of historic 'firsts' in aviation.

As long ago as 3-Jan-1496, for example, Leonardo da Vinci tested a flying machine. It failed.

More successful was the world's first commercial airline service, launched on 1-Jan-1914.

The first week of January has considerable significance for aviation companies, ranging from Avro Aircraft to Lufthansa and LOT Polish.

It has also marked milestones in the lives of a number of aviation trailblazers from the early decades of powered flight and the introduction of the first airline uniforms.

Over the past year, CAPA - Centre for Aviation has delivered successful events across the globe.

From Grand Cayman to Lisbon, via Athens, Cairns, Lima and Singapore, it was amazing to welcome so many delegates and share and discuss latest industry insights.

At each of the events CAPA's analysts have taken the opportunity to interview many leading officials.

Here's some of the most popular CAPA TV video interviews from 2025.

After half a decade marked by crisis management, regulatory intervention and damaged confidence, the year 2025 is emerging as Boeing's most important inflection point since the aftermath of the 737 MAX grounding.

For the first time since 2018 the narrative is no longer dominated solely by what went wrong, but increasingly by evidence of stabilisation and selective recovery.

With approximately 1,000 gross aircraft orders logged in the first 11 months of the year, and deliveries set to reach 560-570 units, Boeing is on track for its strongest annual performance in seven years.

The quality of that demand matters as much as the volume. Widebodies have returned to centre stage, with an exceptional 351 orders for the 787 and a further 173 for the 777X, providing rare long term visibility into production well into the next decade.

That more than half of these orders came from just three strategically critical customers - Qatar Airways, Emirates and Turkish Airlines - underlines both Boeing's enduring relevance in the long haul market and the concentration risks that still shape its commercial profile.

Deliveries, while improving, tell a more nuanced story.

Output is stabilising and gradually rising, but remains well below historical peaks, and heavily weighted towards North American customers.

Freighters continue to be a differentiator, reinforcing Boeing's structural advantage over Airbus in the cargo segment at a time when widebody passenger markets are only selectively recovering.

Crucially, this year 2025 is less about headline numbers than about credibility. Boeing has made tangible progress on safety, quality and production discipline, easing some regulatory constraints and improving supply chain visibility.

At the same time, the company continues to absorb significant losses, navigate fraught labour relations, and confront further certification delays - most notably on the 777X.

This report assesses why 2025 should be seen as the year Boeing turned a corner, and why that corner still leads onto a long, uphill road toward sustainable profitability and restored industry leadership.

Airbus entered 2025 with cautious optimism. After several years of COVID pandemic aftershocks, geopolitical disruption and industrial bottlenecks, the narrative was meant to shift from recovery to consolidation.

Instead, 2025 has become another reminder that for commercial aircraft manufacturing - stability remains elusive.

The decision to lower the annual delivery target - triggered by a supplier quality issue affecting A320 family fuselage panels - is not just a short term operational setback. It is emblematic of a production system still vulnerable to single-point failures and fragile upstream execution.

At first glance, the numbers still look robust. By the end of Nov-2025 Airbus had delivered 656 commercial aircraft, the overwhelming majority were narrowbodies, reinforcing once again that the A320neo family is the economic engine of the programme.

Yet beneath this headline performance lies a more complex story.

More than 600 aircraft were drawn into inspections, with nearly 250 already in final assembly. That scale of disruption inevitably ripples through delivery schedules, customer planning and cash flow, culminating in a sharp slowdown in Nov-2025 handovers and forcing Airbus to lean heavily on an unusually strong Dec-2025 to salvage its revised target.

This report examines who actually took delivery of Airbus aircraft in 2025, and what that distribution says about the state of the global market.

Leasing companies continue to play an outsized - and evolving - role, increasingly acting as conduits to large network airlines, rather than growth-hungry start-ups.

Asia-Pacific and Europe dominate delivery volumes, but with notable subplots: India's continued narrowbody absorption, China's unique appetite for the A319neo, and Africa's striking absence, despite rapid traffic growth.

The geographic and customer mix of deliveries in 2025 highlights both Airbus' enduring strengths and its structural constraints. With a backlog stretching beyond a decade of production, demand is not the problem. The challenge, once again, is execution - and the consequences are being felt well beyond Toulouse.