Air India's New Mumbai-Tokyo Nonstop, and Everything Else That Changed for Indian Travellers This Month

It has been an unusually busy few weeks for anyone tracking how Indians actually get out of the country, with three separate pieces of news landing close enough together that they are worth reading as one story rather than three.

Mumbai finally gets a direct line to Tokyo

Air India began nonstop service between Mumbai and Tokyo Haneda from mid-June, running four times a week on a Boeing 787-8. For western and southern India travellers, this closes a gap that has quietly forced most Tokyo-bound passengers through Delhi or a Gulf hub for years. It follows a similar move in May, when Air India launched a direct Delhi-Hanoi route five times a week, part of a broader push to open more direct Southeast and East Asia connections rather than routing everything through the existing Delhi hub.

The wider network is reopening too

Air India is also reportedly reviewing several international routes that were suspended during last year's Middle East airspace disruptions, as easing regional tensions and lower jet fuel prices make those corridors viable again. Nothing is confirmed yet route by route, but the direction is clearly toward restoring rather than further cutting the international map, which matters for anyone who had a preferred route quietly disappear over the past year.

The e-Visa list just got longer

On the inbound side, the Indian government has expanded its own e-Visa framework, adding online applications for Transit, Mountaineering, Film, and Production/Investment visa categories alongside the standard tourist entry, and widening the list of designated entry points to 51. This is mostly relevant if you are booking travel for overseas family, colleagues, or clients, since these were previously categories that often needed an embassy visit rather than an online form.

Sri Lanka just got easier too

Sri Lanka introduced a 30-day free tourist entry authorisation for nationals of 40 countries in late May, replacing what used to be a paid ETA for a chunk of its visitor base. It is a small, practical shift for anyone treating Colombo or the south coast as a short add-on to a Kerala or Tamil Nadu trip, since the visa cost and paperwork were previously one of the few frictions on an otherwise easy short-haul route.

What this actually means for booking decisions

None of these changes are individually dramatic, but together they lower the cost, in time and money, of routes that used to require a connection or a visa office visit. If Tokyo, Hanoi, or a wider Middle East itinerary has been sitting on a travel wishlist because the routing was inconvenient, this is the first month in a while where that has genuinely gotten easier rather than harder.