IndiGo, one of the leading airlines in India, has recently announced its plans to launch flights from Mumbai to London Heathrow on October 26. This route has been in the works for a long time and was officially confirmed on October 6, giving potential customers less than three weeks’ notice to plan and book their flights. While this may seem like a short amount of time, IndiGo is confident that its codeshare agreement with Turkish Airlines and the growing awareness of its Mumbai-Manchester operation will help drive sales.

IndiGo will also be launching its second route to Manchester on November 15, this time from Delhi. Despite the ongoing detour to avoid Pakistani airspace, which has resulted in increased time and operating costs, IndiGo will operate this route four times a week. This will be the airline’s third route to the UK.

Using slots leased from Virgin Atlantic, IndiGo will operate daily flights from Mumbai to Heathrow’s Terminal 3. The airline will use a Boeing 787-9 aircraft, which has been leased from Norse Atlantic. This is part of Norse Atlantic’s shift towards leasing and charter flights rather than scheduled operations. The London-Mumbai market is known to be one of the largest in the world, with nearly 700,000 round-trip passengers flying between the two cities in the 12 months leading up to July 2025. IndiGo will target a portion of this traffic, along with connecting passengers within India.

According to booking data, about three in four passengers prefer to fly nonstop between London and Mumbai, with a growing number of carriers offering direct flights. Other passengers opt for connecting flights through Gulf hubs. In response to the increasing demand, Emirates has added more flights to London, with a record 13 daily departures available during the upcoming winter season. Qatar Airways and its partner British Airways also plan to offer up to five London flights in just 35 minutes.

The daily flight schedule for Mumbai-Heathrow and Heathrow-Mumbai has been released, with flights departing on Fridays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. This marks an increase in the number of daily flights between the two cities, with up to nine takeoffs now available. In October, Mumbai will become Heathrow’s fifth most-served long-haul market, with 249 one-way flights. Only New York JFK, Doha, Dubai, and Newark will have more winter flights.

Mumbai-Heathrow will now be served by five airlines, including Air Canada, Air India, British Airways, IndiGo, and Virgin. On a randomly chosen Saturday, November 15, there will be nine departures from Heathrow to Mumbai. Air Canada’s fifth freedom operation, which runs seasonally and previously flew from Toronto to Delhi via Heathrow, has now reduced its flights to four weekly.