Air India will boost capacity on its Delhi-Manila route by replacing the 188-seat Airbus A321 with a 256-seat Boeing 787 Dreamliner from October 25, 2026.
The airline currently operates the daily service with the smaller aircraft, having scaled up from an initial five weekly flights when the route launched in October 2025.
The upgrade comes as IndiGo seeks approval from the Civil Aeronautics Board of the Philippines to launch its own flights to Manila and Cebu, entering a market Air India has so far had to itself.
Philippine Airlines is also preparing to enter the fray, planning to start services to Delhi and Mumbai during the upcoming winter schedule under the existing bilateral air services agreement between the two countries.
Aviation analyst Ameya Joshi said load factors on the Manila-Delhi sector have twice touched the low 80s, a sign of the demand growth prompting the capacity upgrade.
Indian arrivals in the Philippines rose 43% year-on-year in the first half of 2026, with more than 60,000 Indian travellers visiting the country in that period.
Air India currently operates the Delhi-Manila route on a daily basis using the 188-seat Airbus A321, having scaled up from an initial five weekly flights when the service launched in October 2025.
Aviation analyst Ameya Joshi, founder of the Network Thoughts blog, said load factors on the Manila-Delhi sector have twice touched the low 80s, reflecting strong and sustained demand on the route.
Philippine Airlines is separately planning to launch its own services to Delhi and Mumbai during the winter schedule, basing its request on the bilateral Philippines-India Air Services Agreement.
That agreement permits up to 28 weekly flights between Manila and three other Philippine cities and the Indian metros of New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, leaving room for further expansion by carriers on both sides.
Photo by Steve Knight, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
