No Nation in the World Is Buying More Planes Than India. Here’s Why.

No nation in the world is buying as many airplanes as India. Its largest airlines have ordered nearly 1,000 jets this year, committing tens of billions of dollars to a spending spree that is unparalleled in aviation. In New Delhi, Indira Gandhi International Airport will be ready for 109 million passengers next year, as it prepares to become the world’s second busiest, behind Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the United States.

And this is happening in a vast country still heavily reliant on trains — with 20 journeys by rail for every one by air.

The enormous aviation build-out, with a surge of investment behind it, has pride of place in India’s case for a greater standing on the world stage. As it moves up the ranks of the world’s biggest economies, India is scrambling to meet the expanding ambitions of its ascendant middle class. Its airports present highly visible achievements.

Air travel remains out of the financial reach of most Indians. An estimated 3 percent of the country’s population flies on a regular basis. But in a nation of 1.4 billion people, that percentage represents 42 million — executives, students and engineers who yearn to get quickly from here to there inside India’s borders, and to gain easier access to destinations beyond, for both business and vacation.

Kapil Kaul, the chief executive of CAPA India, an advisory firm focused on aviation, calls “the next two to three years critical for achieving the quality of growth that India desires and deserves.” Growth has so far been profitless. Now Indian aviation must prove it can make money.

The effects of the spending spree should redound across India’s economy. Cargo comes with passenger traffic, and foreign investment tends to follow closely behind, Mr. Kaul said.