IndiGo is closing its route to RΓ©union. The Indian low-cost carrier has filed further changes to its Chennai β St Denis de la RΓ©union service, first cutting frequency and then withdrawing from the market altogether before the end of October 2026.
Under the filed schedule, the route drops from three weekly flights to two weekly from 27 September 2026. The final departure is scheduled for 21 October 2026. The Airbus A320neo continues to operate the sector until then.
The October schedule
For its last month of operation, IndiGo has filed the following pattern:
- 6E1871 β Chennai 12:20 β St Denis de la RΓ©union 17:10, A320neo
- 6E1872 β St Denis de la RΓ©union 18:10 β Chennai 02:10+1, A320neo
It is a long day for a narrowbody. Chennai to RΓ©union crosses roughly 5,000 kilometres of open Indian Ocean, and the return leg lands back in southern India in the small hours of the following morning. The A320neo can do it, but there is very little commercial fat on a rotation like that β which is usually the first clue about why a route ends up on the review list.
Why the route is going
IndiGo has not published a detailed rationale, and the schedule filing does not carry one. The commercial logic is not hard to read, though. RΓ©union is a French overseas department with a strong historic and family connection to Tamil Nadu, which is what made a Chennai link plausible in the first place. But the traffic base is narrow, the competition from one-stop routings through the Gulf and via Mauritius is real, and the aircraft flying that rotation could earn more on a shorter, denser sector inside IndiGo's core network.
That trade-off has become sharper as IndiGo works through a period of network discipline. The airline has been trimming thin international sectors while it concentrates aircraft on domestic and short-haul international markets where its cost structure and frequency advantage do the most work.
Kolkata β Ho Chi Minh City also goes
The RΓ©union decision came alongside a second withdrawal. IndiGo has discontinued its Kolkata β Ho Chi Minh City service outright. That route had previously been suspended from 1 July 2026 to 30 September 2026; the cancellation has now been extended beyond 1 October 2026, which in practice makes the suspension permanent.
Both cuts point the same way. Long, thin sectors flown by narrowbodies from secondary Indian gateways are the hardest part of IndiGo's international map to make work, and they are the first to go when the airline needs aircraft elsewhere.
What it means for passengers
Travellers already booked beyond 21 October will need to be reaccommodated, and after that date there is no nonstop option between Chennai and RΓ©union. Connections via Mauritius or the Gulf remain, at the cost of a longer journey and an additional touchpoint. For the RΓ©unionβTamil Nadu community, it is a genuine loss of convenience β the kind of route that means more to the people who use it than its passenger numbers ever suggest.
Sources: AeroRoutes. Featured image: AI-generated by AviationShop. By Daniel Okafor.
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