IndiGo arrives in Port Blair, its 41st destination

In a first, IndiGo goes beyond the mainland India in ten years of its 'domestic' operations. The airline launches Port Blair as its 41st destinations which is also its 36th station in India. In a typical IndiGo way, it is adding multiple frequencies and at least two non-stop destinations from the new station. Daily Delhi-Port Blair flight via Kolkata from today and daily Hyderabad-Port Blair flight via Chennai from 30 September are being introduced. Interestingly the Tata Singapore Airlines joint venture full service carrier Vistara too is scheduled to launch Delhi-Port Blair flight via Kolkata on 30 September. And Vistara has made the route announcement long back on 23 June and IndiGo has followed it up and opened the reservations on 29 August barely a month ago from launch. This would be the first time when IndiGo has closely followed up Vistara network growth as so far it had chased the other new joint venture airline of Tata, AirAsia India. 


IndiGo's Kolkata-Port Blair schedule eff 28 September 2016 

Flight No.	Origin: Departure	Destination: Arrival	Service
6E 6338	Kolkata: 07:45	Port Blair: 10:00	Non-Stop
6E 662	Port Blair: 10:30	Kolkata: 12:50	Non-Stop

IndiGo's Delhi-Port Blair schedule eff 28 September 2016 

Flight No.	Origin: Departure	Destination: Arrival	Service
6E 6338	Delhi: 05:05	Port Blair: 10:00	via Kolkata
6E 662	Port Blair: 10:30	Delhi: 15:30	via Kolkata

With Port Blair flight IndiGo is also introducing its series of four-digit flight numbers. The carrier is also resuming the 13 daily flight between Delhi and Kolkata which it had earlier launched in peak summer season of 2016 but later withdrew. With this Kolkata-Port Blair sector now sees all the domestic pan-India carriers operating on it except AirAsia India which is yet to arrive in Kolkata. GoAir which had earlier launched first ever Bengaluru-Port Blair non-stop flight in the summer schedule is again resuming the same from 1 October following suspension during the monsoon off-season.

IndiGo's Chennai-Port Blair schedule eff 30 September 2016 

Flight No.	Origin: Departure	Destination: Arrival	Service
6E 6338	Chennai: 05:55	Port Blair: 11:15	Non-Stop
6E 858	Port Blair: 11:45	Chennai: 14:05	Non-Stop

IndiGo's Hyderabad-Port Blair schedule eff 30 September 2016 

Flight No.	Origin: Departure	Destination: Arrival	Service
6E 6338	Hyderabad: 06:50	Port Blair: 11:15	via Chennai
6E 858	Port Blair: 11:45	Hyderabad: 15:50	via Chennai

Though known for its extensive capacity deployment and having dense network however IndiGo has so far been the most conservative airline in terms of number of destinations it serves. As of today it's network consists of 36 cities in India along with five regional international destinations though it possess a large fleet of 117 Airbus A320 aircraft as of today. In comparison SpiceJet flies to 39* cities in India with a fleet just third of that of IndiGo and GoAir operates to 23* stations in India with a fleet strength just a fifth of IndiGo. 

Though the airline has added four new stations (Dimapur, Udaipur and Dehradun) in last 18 months or so. Currently Amritsar, Bhopal, Mangalore, Trichy and Leh are major missing points in IndiGo's domestic network. As it was discussed here in this blog months before the route announcement that Port Blair to become IndiGo's next destinations. 

.@IndiGo6E likely to launch Port Blair flight soon. It will become the 41st destination overall & 36th in the domestic network.#AvGeek

— Soumen Mukherjee (@MrrMukherjee) June 11, 2016

IndiGo Port Blair inaugural flight 6E 6338 from Delhi on operated on a nearly five year old Airbus A320-232 aircraft, registration: VT-IEM (msn: 4947) without winglets. The flight originated at Delhi and had nearly 30 minutes lay-over in Kolkata from where it took off at 07:56, 11 minutes after its scheduled departure time (on-time). And the flight is still airborne at the time of publishing this article.

* including future destinations