Geography · Ch 16 — International Trade — India
Airports
Airports
Air transport is the fastest mode of moving goods across the world, but it is also the most expensive. In international trade, its role is limited to high-value, low-weight, or perishable items — things that need to reach a market quickly and can bear the high cost. Think of fresh flowers, electronic components, medicines, or precious stones. Heavy or bulky commodities like iron ore, grain, or machinery are almost never sent by air; the cost would be prohibitive. This is why, despite its speed, air transport carries only a tiny fraction of the total volume of global trade compared to ocean routes.
India had 25 major airports functioning as of the Annual Report 2016-17. The list of these airports is: Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Goa, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, Srinagar, Jaipur, Calicut, Nagpur, Coimbatore, Cochin, Lucknow, Pune, Chandigarh, Mangaluru, Vishakhapatnam, Indore, Patna, Bhubaneswar, and Kannur.
A major shift began in 2017 with the launch of the UDAN scheme (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik). Under this programme, the government aimed to connect unserved and underserved regions by air. By 2023, a total of 73 such airports had been operationalised — this includes 9 heliports and 2 water aerodromes. The scheme dramatically expanded the reach of air transport beyond the major cities. …
Map 8.5 is an outline political map of India titled "INDIA — AIR ROUTES". It is not drawn to scale and covers the graticule from 68°E to 96°E longitude and 8°N to 36°N latitude. A north arrow is provided for orientation, and neighbouring countries are labelled for context.
The map uses a clear legend: a solid line represents "Indian and Other Airlines" (the actual flight routes), a filled dot marks "National Airports", and a dot inside a circle marks "International Airports". Dozens of cities are shown as airport nodes across the country. Among them are Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Srinagar, Amritsar, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Nagpur, Bhubaneswar, Port Blair, and many more. The solid route lines fan out from these nodes and converge most densely on four cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata — these are the primary hubs of India's air network.
Several international route lines extend beyond the map's edges, each labelled with a destination: "To Karachi", "To Kabul", "To Bahrain/London", "To Gulf/Europe/USA", "To Aden", "To Nairobi", "To Seychelles", "To Dubai", "To Mauritius", "To Singapore & Sydney", and "To Rangoon/Bangkok/Tokyo". These labels show the major international connections from India's airports to destinations across Asia, Africa, Europe, and Australia. …