Sustainable Packaging for Airlines and Travel Catering: India's Aviation Sector Goes Green

India handled over 180 million domestic air passengers in 2025–26 — and every one of those flights served food in packaging. Trays, cups, cutlery, meal containers, snack wrappers, beverage cups. Multiply that by the number of flights, and you get a volume of single-use packaging waste that is staggering even before accounting for airport food courts, railway catering, and long-distance bus services.

The travel catering sector has been slower than restaurants and cloud kitchens to move on sustainable packaging — primarily because of the logistical complexity of scale, the weight and size constraints of airborne service, and the multi-vendor supply chains involved. In 2026, that is changing.

THE REGULATORY PUSH

• Ministry of Civil Aviation's Green Aviation India 2030 roadmap includes packaging sustainability targets for airline catering operations
  
  
• Airport Authority of India (AAI) has mandated plastic-free packaging at all AAI-operated airports by December 2026
  
  
• IRCTC — which serves 13 million meals daily across Indian Railways — has been actively transitioning to bagasse and paper packaging since 2023, with certified bagasse manufacturers listed as approved suppliers
  
  
• DGCA's eco-compliance reporting framework for airline operators now includes packaging waste metrics

IRCTC's transition to bagasse packaging for railway catering has been one of the largest single-sector sustainable packaging adoptions in India — and it has demonstrated that the materials perform at the volume and durability standards that large-scale travel catering requires.

WHAT SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL CATERING PACKAGING LOOKS LIKE

In-flight meal containers

Bagasse meal trays and containers are now used by several Indian airlines for domestic service — they handle the temperature variation of airline service (chilled storage to heated service) and meet FSSAI food contact standards. The weight differential from plastic is minimal and within airline weight management parameters.

Cutlery

Birchwood cutlery sets have been adopted by multiple domestic carriers for economy class service — the tactile quality improvement over plastic is visible to passengers and supports premium cabin differentiation when used in business class alongside reusable metal.

Beverage cups

CPLA-lined paper cups for hot beverages, compostable cold cups for juice and water service. Several airlines have eliminated plastic cups from domestic routes entirely in 2026.

Snack and amenity packaging

Compostable pouches and kraft paper snack packaging replace conventional plastic snack bags. Seed paper headrest cards — which passengers can take home and plant — have become a visible sustainability communication tool for airlines wanting to signal values.

THE AIRPORT FOOD COURT OPPORTUNITY

Airport food courts are a high-footfall, high-visibility packaging environment. Every meal served in a plastic container is seen by hundreds of passengers. In 2026, major Indian airports including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad have introduced sustainable packaging requirements for food court operators — creating demand for certified compostable containers, paper cups, and birchwood cutlery at airport scale.

WHY THIS MATTERS BEYOND AVIATION

Travel catering is a visible proof point for sustainable packaging — when passengers experience compostable packaging in a flight or airport setting and see that it performs exactly as well as plastic, it shifts their expectations for all food service. The aviation sector's adoption of sustainable packaging is one of the most effective normalisation mechanisms in the market.

At Prakritii, our bagasse and birchwood products meet the quality and food safety standards required for travel catering supply chains, including IRCTC-compatible specifications.

The best journey leaves only memories — not packaging waste at 35,000 feet.

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