India InFlight Catering Market: Current Analysis and Forecast (2024-2032)

India InFlight Catering market has shown a robust growth in the recent years. The inflight catering market in India has experienced immense growth, largely attributed to the boom in the aviation industry, the increase in disposable income, and changing consumer behavior. Inflight catering is defined as the cooking and serving of food and drinks on airplanes to passengers during flights. This market has grown especially with the upsurge in air travel, both within the region and across borders, as well as the increasing concern of the airline industry on enhancing the overall experience of the passengers with appealing and delicious meals. Other features of the market are the booming tourism and business travel industries which necessitate eating in flights while on transit.

The InFlight Catering Market is expected to grow at a significant rate of around 13.95% during the forecast period (2024-2032). There are multiple reasons contributing to the flourishing of the inflight catering industry in India. The foremost among them has been the emergence of air travel as one of the preferred mediums of transport within the country and outside. Owing to the expansion of the airlines in terms of routes, and frequencies, there has been an increase in demand for inflight meals. The expansion of low-cost carriers like IndiGo, SpiceJet, and GoAir into the domestic market has helped in this problem as it allowed the purchasing power of customers who normally did not fly to increase and hence the total volume of passengers carried by the airline industry as a whole grew. Furthermore, as the airlines still espouse the improvement of the customer experience, inflight catering services are becoming an important competitive factor, with many airlines already providing various types of meals, including vegetarian, gluten-free, local meals, and others.

Overall, the forecasting of the inflight catering market has a very optimistic outlook in India, owing to persistent air travel uptake, changing passenger requirements, and innovation all the while. Price competition is bound to be driven as air carriers increase their fleet and route networks leading to a heightened demand for quality and variety of the inflight meal service.

Based on Aircraft class the India Inflight catering services market is segmented into economy class, business class, and first class. Of these, the economy class category has held a sizable market share due to travel of the vast majority of passengers through the economy class. All the Low Cost Carriers, such as IndiGo, SpiceJet, and Air India, contribute to the high share of significant segment of the passenger traffic targeted at the economy class. Further, the airlines emphasizing on economy passengers provide quality meals that are relative cheap so as to, give value for money meals. The ability to generate revenue even through the selling of uniform ready made meals is influenced by the high volumes of economy class travelers. In addition, the rising number of domestic and short-haul international flights leads to the expansion of this segment.

The India inflight catering market can be divided into three key flight service types, Full Service Carrier (FSC), Low Cost Carrier (LCC) and Hybrid/ Other flight services. Among these, the Low-Cost Carrier (LCC) segment has in the recent years dominated the market owing to the increasing interest towards travelling on a budget, growing air passenger volume, and costs forecasting on travelling. Their lower fares because LCCs have such pricing policies which brings in considerable number of passengers increasing the need to inflight meals that are cheap. Furthermore, the growth of domestic tourism and budget travelers also enhances the reason as to why the LCC segment is the most dominant in the Indian inflight catering market.

The India inflight catering market is further segmented by type of food into four categories: Meals, Bakery & Confectionary, Beverages and Other Food Types. Of these, the 'Meals' segment dominates the market, due to the rising need for wholesome and variety meals during flights. Free meals provided objectively prompts airlines to provide additional meals ranging from vegetarian to non-vegetarian and other special needs meals for a diverse mix of customers. Though the Bakery & Confectionary and Beverages segments exhibit appreciable growth, the consumption of meals during the flights remains the primary driver owing to the full meal service requirements by the passengers.

For a better understanding of the market adoption of the InFlight Catering market, the market is analyzed based on its country-wide presence in regions such as North India, East India, West India, and South India. North India has held a sizable market share among these due to rising urban centers, customers requiring air travel for both domestic and international travel. Additionally, with the various online offers from different websites the demand for added services as meals has extensively grown further promoting the demand for InFlight Catering in India.

Some of the major players operating in the market include TajSATS Air Catering Limited, Gate Group, Ambassador's Sky Chef, Casino Air Caterers & Flight Services, Skygourmet Catering Private Limited, Oberoi Flight Services (Oberoi Group), Muthoot Skychef (Muthoot Finance Ltd), Lufthansa Flight Kitchen (Deutsche Lufthansa AG), Uday Sky Kitchen (USK), and Lulu Flight Kitchen Private Limited.