India bullet trains could cut short-haul flights

India’s planned high-speed rail network could sharply reduce demand for flights on several busy short-haul routes, Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Monday. This is reported by the railway transport news portal Railway Supply.

Speaking at the CII Business Summit, ETInfra reported that Vaishnaw cited corridors including Mumbai-Pune, Hyderabad-Bengaluru and Bengaluru-Chennai. He said those domestic sectors could see a strong passenger shift from air travel to rail once bullet train services become operational. He also said airline investors should reassess growth expectations for these routes.

“Nobody will fly on these routes,” Vaishnaw said, referring to the expected effect of planned bullet train services on several key corridors.

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India’s planned high-speed rail network and short-haul flights

Vaishnaw said high-speed rail has already changed inter-city passenger travel in Japan, China and South Korea. In those markets, rail services dominate several dense passenger routes.

According to Vaishnaw, the proposed network would cut travel time between Mumbai and Pune to 48 minutes. Pune-Hyderabad would take 1 hour 55 minutes. Hyderabad-Bengaluru would take 2 hours 8 minutes. Chennai-Hyderabad would take 2 hours 55 minutes, and Bengaluru-Chennai would take 78 minutes.

Vaishnaw said routes such as Mumbai-Pune and Bengaluru-Chennai would be “99 per cent dominated by railways” after the high-speed services start running.

For example, he pointed to high-speed rail links between Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka in Japan. He cited them as an example of how such services have reduced dependence on domestic flights. Similar patterns, he said, have also been seen in China and South Korea.

Bullet train corridors and land acquisition

The minister said India plans to spend nearly ₹16 lakh crore on the upcoming bullet train corridors.

Vaishnaw also said land acquisition for the planned routes would begin shortly. In addition, he said most of the investment would go to Indian contractors and suppliers. “Practically the entire amount” would flow into the domestic economy through local participation, he said.

He did not announce schedules for the proposed corridors apart from the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project already under way.

Earlier, Vaishnaw had said India’s first bullet train service is expected to begin operations on August 15, 2027.

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