Japan’s famed “Golden Route”—a cultural and culinary trail encompassing Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka—came with one big hurdle for Indian travellers: having to backtrack hundreds of miles to just to catch a flight home.
However, to address this logistical hurdle, Air India has announced it will launch the first-ever nonstop flights between New Delhi and Osaka’s Kansai International Airport starting early next year.
Operating four times a week, starting 2 February 2027, the new route will make Air India the sole carrier connecting New Delhi directly to Japan’s second-largest metropolitan area.
‘Open-jaw’ advantage
Osaka will become the airline’s second Japanese destination after Tokyo (Haneda), where it currently operates daily flights from Delhi and four-weekly flights from Mumbai.
A major advantage of the new service is the flexibility it offers tourists planning cross-country trips. According to the airline, the addition of Osaka enables travellers to book open-jaw itineraries, “allowing them to fly into Osaka and return from Tokyo, or vice versa.”
This added flexibility is particularly relevant as multi-city travel becomes increasingly popular among Indian visitors looking to cover the Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka circuit without wasting time returning to their original port of entry.
Flight schedule
The route will be serviced by Boeing 787-8 aircraft, featuring 18 full-flat beds in Business Class and 241 seats in Economy Class, said in a statement.
The airline said that the flight timings have been structured to “maximise customer convenience”.
The outbound service (AI360) will depart Delhi late in the evening and arrive in Osaka the following morning. The return flight (AI359) will leave Osaka late in the morning and arrive in Delhi the same evening, offering “seamless connectivity to destinations across Air India’s domestic and international network”.
(+1) indicates next calendar day arrival. All times are in local time zones.
Japan travel boom
Air India’s decision to expand capacity to East Asia comes on the heels of a massive surge in outbound tourism.
According to data from the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) cited by the airline, more than 3,15,000 Indian visitors travelled to in 2025. This marks a robust 35% increase over 2024 numbers and sits nearly 80% above pre-pandemic levels.
Air India noted that this sharp market growth is being driven by a “rising interest in Japan’s leisure, cultural and culinary experiences, alongside increasing business and people-to-people ties between the two countries.”