As the annual air passenger traffic in India is increasing steeply (13.52 million in 2012 compared to 11.02 million in 2010), an environmental impact assessment on important cities connected by air is becoming increasingly indispensable. This study proposes an innovative screening method that uses a modified Environmental Vulnerability Index (EVI). This modified EVI calculator includes aviation-related parameters and can be used to assess the environmental vulnerabilities of political states and cities, in addition to countries as is being already done. This study also suggests the need to include aspects of human comfort in the screening process through the use of state-of-the-art computational fluid dynamical software and large eddy simulations which can be used to estimate forces experienced by aircraft of different sizes during in-flight turbulence for various weather conditions. A comparative analysis is presented on how changing the size of the aircraft operating in a particular route between the cities of Chennai and Bengaluru has better implications on both passenger comfort and the environment. It is observed that if commercial airlines incorporated fewer medium-sized aircraft, there would be a significant reduction in the environmental vulnerability of the two connected cities. © 2016, Springer-Verlag London.