The world's third global aerospace market: India's civil aviation sector takes off

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: FOCUS © FRANCE 24 05:59 Issued on: 09/09/2026 - 14:34Modified: 09/09/2026 - 14:37 From the show The aviation sector is one of the India's strongest-performing industries. More than 70 airports have been built over the past decade, and the country counts over 400 million air passengers annually. In just ten years, India has become the world's third-largest aviation market, behind China and the United States. The boom has attracted foreign investment and major aerospace companies such as Airbus, whose aircraft make up over 70% of the country's domestic fleet. But to meet demand, India will also need to train a large number of pilots – about 35,000 by 2035. Report by Alban Alvarez, Sacha Desmaizières and Supriya Kumar.