Air India Express (IX), the low-cost arm of the Tata-owned Air India Group, is reportedly evaluating a new route to Georgia as part of a wider push into Europe. The carrier currently flies mainly to the Middle East and Southeast Asia from India, and Georgia would represent new territory. The development was first reported in early 2026 by The Hindu BusinessLine.
The interest in Georgia comes at a time when Tbilisi has become one of the most actively courted aviation markets in the region. Five new foreign carriers launched service to the Georgian capital in 2025 alone, and the airport operator is investing roughly $150 million to expand capacity ahead of 2028. Air India Express would enter that market from a low-cost, narrow-body position, distinct from the full-service carriers already flying there.
What Air India Express has Said About its Expansion Plans
Air India Express has spoken publicly about international growth ambitions for several years, though not always with route-specific detail. At the Routes Asia 2022 event in Da Nang, Vietnam, then Chief of Commercial Tara Naidu said the carrier was exploring around 30 countries as part of a five-year growth plan. Cambodia, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam were among the markets named at the time.
That early ambition has since translated into steady, incremental growth rather than a single large expansion event. As of mid-2026, the airline serves 61 destinations, including 43 in India and 18 abroad, with the United Arab Emirates as its largest single international market with five destinations.
The airline’s strategy under managing director Aloke Singh has centered on linking India’s tier-2 and tier-3 cities to international hubs, rather than competing head-on with Air India’s long-haul network.
A Georgia route would mark a departure from this pattern. It would be the carrier’s first announced push into the Caucasus region, a market historically served by full-service European and Gulf airlines rather than Indian low-cost carriers.
Why Tbilisi has Become a Target for New Airlines
Georgia’s aviation authorities have actively courted new carriers over the past 18 months, and the country has positioned itself as a connector between Europe and Asia. Salome Jaoshvili, head of the commercial department at United Airports of Georgia, told Routes that “Georgia has continued to strengthen its position as an emerging aviation and tourism destination at the crossroads of Europe and Asia”.
That momentum is reflected in a wave of new entrants:
- British Airways, Edelweiss, Air Serbia, easyJet and Transavia France all launched service to Tbilisi during 2025.
- Norwegian is preparing to enter the market in 2026 with flights from Copenhagen.
- China Eastern Airlines is scheduled to start three-times-weekly Shanghai–Tbilisi flights on July 15, adding to existing Chinese links from Air China and China Southern Airlines via Urumqi.
Tbilisi International Airport (TBS) is expanding to support this growth. In January 2026, the Georgian government and operator TAV Airports signed an agreement worth about $150 million to add 19,500 square metres of terminal space and extend TAV’s concession through 2031, raising annual capacity to 10 million passengers by 2028, Aviation Week reported. A second gateway, Vaziani International Airport, is planned to open near the capital by the end of 2031 with eventual capacity for up to 20 million passengers a year.
How Rising Indian Travel Demand Fits the Picture
Indian outbound travel is a significant factor behind Georgia’s appeal to new carriers. According to a Travel and Tour World report on Georgia’s tourism strategy, Indian visitors have increasingly chosen Georgia over Western Europe because of easier entry requirements and lower costs while still offering a similar look and feel. The same report notes that Gulf hubs in the UAE and Qatar already funnel a large share of Indian travelers into Georgia indirectly, through one-stop connections.
A direct Air India Express service would shorten that journey for Indian travellers and let the airline capture revenue currently going to Gulf carriers acting as connecting points. Georgian aviation officials have separately said that India, alongside Japan and the Middle East, is one of the growth markets they are targeting as the country looks to diversify beyond European demand.
Fleet Constraints Could Delay Georgia Launch
Any new route depends on aircraft availability, and Air India Express has faced the same global supply-chain delays affecting carriers worldwide. To grow its fleet faster than new deliveries allow, the airline has taken on “white-tail” Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets that were originally built for another carrier and left undelivered. Group CEO Campbell Wilson’s team has said it is refitting roughly 50 of these aircraft for Air India Express use.
At the group level, Air India’s chief commercial and customer officer, Nipun Aggarwal, told India Outbound that “as the supply chain stabilises, we expect a faster induction of both wide-body and narrow-body aircraft from 2027 to around 2031–32. That will allow us to add new destinations from India”. This timeline suggests that even if Georgia is confirmed as a target, a launch is more likely to land in the later part of this decade than in the immediate term.
According to The Hindu Business line, the carrier has “outlined plans to achieve a 25 per cent domestic market share by FY31, supported by a planned fleet of 300 aircraft, representing a threefold expansion from its current scale“, and added that the carrier’s network spans 43 domestic and 16 international destinations, claiming that the carrier is “steadily building one of India’s largest short-haul route networks across South Asia, Southeast Asia, West Asia and, potentially, Eastern Europe“:
“Air India Express recently crossed the 100-aircraft milestone, with nearly two-thirds of its fleet comprising new-generation aircraft, supporting both scale and operational efficiency. Since its privatisation in 2022, the airline has nearly doubled its capacity and tripled its market share, making it one of India’s fastest-growing carriers. Meanwhile, passenger traffic has also grown by more than 25 per cent year-on-year…”
The Georgia interest surfaces at an otherwise difficult moment for the wider Air India Group. In a separate but related development, Air India announced plans in 2026 to cut around 100 flights a day across its domestic and international network amid surging jet fuel costs and a reported ₹20,000 crore loss. Around the same period, IndiGo overtook Air India on international routes during the West Asia airspace disruption, intensifying competitive pressure on the Tata-owned group.
All in All
No formal confirmation of a Tbilisi route, aircraft type, or launch date has been issued by Air India Express as of this writing. Indian carriers typically confirm new international destinations only after securing bilateral traffic rights and slot allocations, a process that can take months. Georgian aviation authorities, for their part, have made clear they are actively pursuing more Asian carriers, which suggests Tbilisi’s door remains open if Air India Express moves forward.