AI171 crash in Ahmedabad killed 260 people on June 12

The Covid-19 pandemic? Ancient history. The global aviation industry is on track to shatter the 10 billion flyers milestone — a soaring triumph. But 2025 will forever be scarred as the year of Air India's catastrophic crash in Gujarat, India's deadliest aviation disaster in nearly three decades.Chaos erupted at Indian airports in December when IndiGo, the nation's top private carrier, buckled under a brutal scheduling meltdown of delays and cancellations.

Air India Flight Skids Off Runway At Mumbai Airport Amid Heavy Rain; Plane Suffers Damage

Around the world, the boom hit major turbulence. Airbus sidelined thousands of A320 jets over a dire defect, while UK airport inferno, a US government shutdown, and Canadian staff strikes grounded dreams everywhere.Buckle up — 2025 was aviation's greatest boom facing its fiercest reckoning.

The aviation 'boom'

Since 2022, as Covid-19 restrictions lifted worldwide, global air travel has roared back from the brink — like a phoenix rising from the ashes of 2020's unprecedented crash. That fateful year, the World Health Organization's pandemic declaration in February unleashed sweeping lockdowns, slashing passenger numbers from 9.16 billion in 2019 to a staggering low of 3.61 billion.Airports Council International (ACI) data show the stunning recovery: 4.65 billion flyers in 2021, surging to 6.66 billion in 2022, 8.69 billion in 2023, and 9.52 billion in 2024.

Projections for 2025 hit 9.8 billion, hurtling toward the historic 10-billion milestone.

ACI Director Genereal Justin Erbacci wrote in the organisation's September report:

International travel remains the main engine of growth, but to sustain air travel demand globally, regulators must foster policies and frameworks that enable improved connectivity, long-term resilience, and sustainable growth.

Justin Erbacci

Yet Erbacci's words ring truer than ever: unchecked expansion hides dangers — and 2025 exposed them in real time. What risks could ground this boom before it peaks?

The crises

Several major incidents exposed the risks and pressures facing the aviation industry.

Foremost among them was the Air India crash, a tragedy that came to define the year despite the sector’s broader recovery.

**India

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The crash: 260 lives were lost when a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner operating flight AI-171 from Ahmedabad to London crashed seconds after takeoff on June 12.

Major air crashes in 2025

The mishap claimed the lives of 241 onboard, including 229 passengers and all 12 crew members, and 19 people on the ground. In a rare miracle, one passenger, Indian-origin British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, emerged as the sole survivor from the aircraft.

Lone AI-171 crash survivor Vishwashkumar Ramesh

A preliminary inquiry report, released on July 12, stated that fuel supply to both engines of the plane was “cut off”—implying human error—three seconds after flight AI-171 lifted off, a version that faces legal challenges by pilots' bodies and the father of Captain Sumeet Sabarwal, the commander of the ill-fated flight.

AI171 preliminary report

The meltdown: In its worst operational crisis to date, IndiGo cancelled and delayed hundreds of flights after the carrier, which commands over 60% of the domestic market, struggled to comply with the new flight duty time norms.

The disruption stranded thousands of passengers, triggering scenes of chaos and frayed tempers at major airports.

The first wave of mass cancellations was reported on December 2, with the situation worsening rapidly in the subsequent days. With no immediate resolution in sight—and as airfares of rival airlines surged—the government imposed penalties on IndiGo but also gave it a one-time exemption until February 2026 to implement the rules, which were later put in abeyance with immediate effect.

Luggage piled up at Delhi airport during IndiGo crisis

Accused of leveraging its market dominance to arm-twist the government into suspending the norms, IndiGo denied it "deliberately engineered" the crisis.The 'GPS spoofing': In early November, nearly 800 flights were reportedly delayed at the Delhi airport, the country’s busiest, due to GPS spoofing—an interference technique that feeds false signals to aircraft navigation systems. The government later confirmed the spoofing but denied that it caused delays, saying only that “multiple flights” approaching the airport had reported the interference.

World

While India had its share of crises, 2025 also tested aviation worldwide, with technical faults, strikes, and operational disruptions challenging carriers.Airbus recalls aircraft: In the last week of November, French aerospace major Airbus recalled thousands of A320-family jets for urgent safety checks and software updates. The recall followed an analysis of an incident in which intense solar radiation was found to potentially corrupt data critical to flight control systems.The affected models included the A318, A319, A320, and A321—nearly 6,000 planes worldwide. In India, more than 350 A320s operated by IndiGo and Air India, the two largest airlines, were grounded for two to three days for the updates.US govt shutdown: It was the longest such shutdown in US history, lasting from October 1 to November 12. Reuters reported that 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 Transportation Security Administration agents were forced to work without pay, and by November 6, at least 3.2 million flyers had already been impacted by the air traffic control shortages.To ease matters, the Federal Aviation Administration announced a phased reduction of flights at 40 of the country's high-traffic airports—4% on November 7, 6% on November 11, 8% on November 13, and a planned 10% by November 14. Between November 7 and 12, over 10,000 flights were cancelled, though reductions did not exceed 6% as the shutdown ended.Delta Air Lines lost an estimated $200 million as a result of the disruption.UK air traffic outage: On July 30, a technical failure lasting less than 20 minutes caused widespread disruption at UK airports. National Air Traffic Services (NATS), which controls British airspace, blamed a radar-related problem at its main control centre in Hampshire. Although operations were restored by switching to a backup system, around 150 flights were cancelled, and delays continued into the next day.Heathrow Airport fire: London’s Heathrow Airport—the busiest in Europe and among the world’s busiest—was forced to shut for nearly 24 hours on March 20 after a fire at a nearby electrical substation triggered a major power outage. The disruption affected more than 270,000 passenger journeys. The London Metropolitan Police found "no evidence" to suggest the incident was suspicious.Air Canada flight attendant strike: A months-long wage dispute at Canada’s largest airline culminated in a strike that began on August 16.

More than 10,000 flight attendants took part, severely disrupting operations, particularly at Toronto Pearson, the country’s busiest airport. The protesters rejected a government order to return to work before a temporary deal was reached on August 19, subject to ratification.

Conflict, nature-related disruptions

India and Pakistan announced reciprocal airspace bans in late April following the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, barring airlines from both countries from using each other’s airspace.

The restrictions have since been extended periodically. Meanwhile, Iran and Israel engaged in hostilities in June, closing their airspace before lifting the curbs after a US-mediated truce.The impact was significant, both financially and in operational terms, as airlines were forced to take longer, costlier detours to reach their destinations. Pakistan’s defence ministry said the Pakistan Airports Authority lost PKR 4.1 billion (about Rs 1.30 billion) in revenue between April 24 and June 30.

In India, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said in October that the airline faced losses of around Rs 4 billion due to Pakistan’s airspace closure.Nature, too, played its part. Natural events—from the eruption of Ethiopia’s Hayli Gubbi volcano after 12,000 years to Hong Kong’s Typhoon Ragasa, wildfires in France, and other such incidents—triggered widespread flight disruptions.

The runway ahead

2025 was not all doom and gloom for Indian aviation. As per the latest DGCA data (as of August), airlines carried 11.07 crore passengers from January to August, as compared to 10.54 crore travellers during the same period in 2024, marking a 5% year-on-year increase. India remains the world’s fifth-largest aviation market (third as per the government). The Delhi-Mumbai corridor is the seventh busiest domestic route globally, while both airports rank among the busiest in the world individually. Three new carriers (Al-Hind, FlyExpress, Shankh Air) recently received NOC from the government. As the year draws to a close, flight operations have commenced at the newly inaugurated Navi Mumbai International Airport, while services at Jewar International Airport are expected to begin in January.

These are intended to ease congestion at Mumbai and Delhi, India’s financial and legislative capitals and the two largest cities, respectively.Globally too, passenger numbers rose despite repeated disruptions. Airlines across major markets reported strong demand even as operations were challenged by technical issues, labour shortages, and geopolitical tensions, underlining the continued resilience of air travel.