Ahmedabad becomes the third spoke in India's international hub network

Ahmedabad joined India’s international hub-and-spoke network on 1 September. Passengers can now finish check-in, immigration and baggage tagging at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport and change in Delhi without repeating those steps.

Civil Aviation Minister K. Ram Mohan Naidu launched the service with Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, Minister of State Murlidhar Mohol and Jeet Adani of Adani Airport Holdings. Varanasi opened the scheme on 25 June. Amritsar followed on 28 July. Ahmedabad is the third spoke.

The two tagged flights

Air India has put two daily Ahmedabad-Delhi services on the Easy Connect list. AI1117 leaves at 08:25 and reaches Delhi at 10:15, effective 2 September. AI1121 leaves at 20:15 and reaches Delhi at 22:00, effective 1 September. Together they offer onward seats to 26 international cities within four hours of landing in Delhi.

The morning bank points at Shanghai, Kathmandu, Dubai, Amsterdam, Manila, Paris, Colombo, Ho Chi Minh City, Frankfurt, Vienna, London, Milan, Phuket, Kuala Lumpur, Riyadh, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Rome and Zurich. The evening bank points at Singapore, Seoul, Colombo, Bangkok, Hanoi, Phuket, Dubai, Toronto, Sydney and London.

Naidu said 1.6 crore passengers last year flew Ahmedabad-Delhi to pick up an international flight. The new tag is meant to keep that traffic inside an Indian airline and an Indian hub instead of sending it through Dubai, Doha or Singapore as a first long-haul.

What changes for the passenger

Under the old pattern a Gujarat flyer booked two tickets, collected bags in Delhi, stood in an immigration queue at a crowded terminal and hoped the connection held. Under Easy Connect the bag is tagged to the final city and the immigration stamp is issued in Ahmedabad. Delhi becomes a sterile transfer. Mohol said more than 2,100 passengers had already used the facility in its trial phase.

The minister tied the launch to the 2030 Commonwealth Games, which Ahmedabad will host, and to the city’s textile, pharmacy, diamond and engineering traffic. The next phase, he said, adds 22 airports, including Surat. The written strategy still names 2030 as the year India should be the first choice hub for its own outbound travellers, and 2047 as the year it should sit in the front rank of global hubs.

The test is not the ribbon

Hub-and-spoke schemes fail when the Delhi bank does not actually hold, when immigration at the spoke is slower than the hub, or when the airline changes the tagged flight number and the through-check collapses. Air India has said it also wants inbound Easy Connect, so a passenger arriving from Europe into Delhi can walk onto an Ahmedabad domestic without collecting a bag. That inbound leg is not live on 1 September.

For now the measurable items are two flight numbers, 26 cities, a four-hour window and a promise of 22 more spokes. If those banks run on time through the festive season, the scheme will look like infrastructure. If they slip, it will look like a press conference.