Air India's non-stop service forces Etihad to scale down San Francisco operation

When the US3 carriers are engaged in a bitter rhetoric against the MEB3 carrier on their offering of one-stop sixth freedom flights via Middle Eastern hubs killing the prospect of non-stop point to point US-India flights. The Indian national carrier Air India seems to have hit the bull's eye with its non-stop services to United States. Air India is now operating 30 weekly flights from four US gateways (Chicago, Newark, New York and San Francisco) which is only going to increase with Washington Dulles service being introduced in spring 2017. In fact it is known to have plans for Los Angeles too. Air India's non-stop San Francisco service is getting wide patronage even at a premium charge over one-stop offerings by other airlines in Gulf or in Europe. Air India's decision to double its San Francisco capacity from November is now believed to be forcing Etihad Airways to scale down its own San Francisco frequency from early next year. The Delhi-San Francisco sector had the maximum number of passengers flying via one-stop flights from India in 2015 as it did not have even a non-stop flight for most part of the year. According OAG traffic analyser's report a total of 1,65,117 passengers (one-way) flew from Delhi to San Francisco via intermediate hubs which was the 12th largest underserved city-pair globally in 2015.

Air Canada expands India operations with flights to Mumbai

Air Canada had long attempted to set a foothold in Indian market since its first arrival in mid 1980s. But the earlier services were frequently halted due to poor economics of legacy long range aircraft before it has finally developed its niche with the introduction fuel efficient Boeing 787 Dreamliner service on routes to India, one of the largest immigrant countries of Canada. The airline which had earlier operated one-stop fifth freedom flights via European gateways like London Heathrow and then Zurich, had launched the non-stop Toronto-Delhi flight in November last year. Following that in April 2016 it went on to launch seasonal service (October to May) between Vancouver and Delhi and now announces Toronto-Mumbai flight from July next year. 

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. 

Hola Madrid: Air India launches Spain flight from December

"Hola Madrid" says Maharaja, the Air India mascot. Starting 1 December 2016 the Indian flag carrier launches three weekly flight to the Spanish capital from its Delhi airport hub. The airline will deploy its 256 seater (18J, 218Y) Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner on the 7,262 km (3,921 nm) Delhi-Madrid route. Madrid becomes the ninth destination in Air India's burgeoning European network. The Star Alliance member airline is yet to make a formal announcement of the launch and reservations for the flight has not yet opened on Air India's official websites or on online travel agents though the schedule has already been filed and Google flights started showing the non-stop flight. For a long time Spain has remained one of the largest untapped market in Western Europe with both Barcelona and Madrid among the largest unserved routes from Delhi. Earlier Air India was also known to be contemplating a Delhi-Madrid-Barcelona-Delhi triangular flight. But having failed triangular flights earlier in Australia and Italy market, Air India has finally decided to go for solo Madrid flight as it as indicated in this blog before.

India-Italy air-connectivity & scope for fifth freedom flight

Though India-Italy relations are not at the best level in recent times. Still cultural and and commercial ties are strong between the Europe's fourth largest economy and the world's fastest growing major economy India. In fact Italy is home to the second largest Indian diaspora in Europe, after the UK with around 150,000 people of Indian-origin based there. At present, Air India and China Airlines (Taiwan) are the only two airlines to operate non-stop flights between the two countries. The later enjoys fifth-freedom traffic rights between India and Italy. Air India offers direct flights to both Rome and Milan from its Delhi hub while China Airlines operates Taipei-Delhi-Rome service. Air India which has returned to Italy market in 2014 almost after a decade, initially used to operate Delhi-Rome-Milan-Delhi triangular service on four days and on the other direction on three days. Later, it had split the triangular service to three weekly Delhi-Rome terminating service and four weekly Delhi-Milan-Delhi in the winter 2015-16 schedule. The India-Italy non-stop capacity to go down from December 2016 with China Airlines withdrawing from the Delhi-Rome sector, therefore opening up opportunities for more non-stop service in the already under-served India-Italy market. Another long-haul carrier from Taiwan, EVA Air is coming to Delhi in late 2016 or early 2017, it also has plans to fly Barcelona and Milan in Europe. It would be interesting to see whether the Taiwanese carrier flies to these European destinations from Delhi exercising the fifth freedom  rights.

Air India rejigs UK, USA services from Today

Today Air India's Boeing 787-8 fleet making its US debut with inaugural Ahmedabad-London-Newark flight. Air India has also resumed its transatlantic fifth freedom flights between London and Newark. Delhi loses one of the seven flights to London (three by Air India) at the cost of Ahmedabad's own four weekly non-stop flight to London. 

Vistara grows two fold in Delhi, 7 new destinations in last 12 months

Vistara has increased monthly departures from its hub Delhi Airport to almost double (93% growth MoM) in August 2016. While Guwahati sees the biggest MoM increase in its monthly departures with first non-stop flight to Delhi added in mid-June 2016. The airline has added seven new destinations to its network in the last one year. And two more destinations are expected to be added by the year end and hopefully early in the winter 2016 schedule. Among the two new destinations to be added, Amritsar is believed to be a front runner while the other one most likely to be a short distance North Indian route from Delhi (CAT-III). Delhi being its hub, clearly leading with 16 direct routes followed by Mumbai (4), Bengaluru (2), Goa (2), Guwahati (2), Kochi (2), Srinagar (2) while all other 10 stations are served by only one route each. Vistara is expected to launch Bengaluru-Kolkata flight, the third non-stop route from Bengaluru while the number of non-stop routes from Kolkata to be increased to four by October 2016. Port Blair (18th destination in the network), the second route from Kolkata is scheduled from 30 September 2016.

Top 10 Busiest Airports in India in H1-2016

India, the fastest growing air-travel market in the world, is experiencing the biggest boom in passenger numbers in recent years. Indian airlines carried more than 47.5 million passengers in domestic sector alone in the first six months of 2016 with 22.5% year-on-year (YoY) growth. And the full year domestic passenger volume in 2016 is expected to cross 100 million mark for the first time. As a result, India's top airports are bustling with passenger traffic growing at double digit rate and outpacing even the most liberal growth forecast. Airports in key metropolis like Mumbai, the financial capital of India, is nearing saturation and facing huge congestion. Five out of top ten airports in the list grew at more than 20% rate in H1-2016 which is unparalleled currently in the world. Barring Mumbai all other airports post double digit passenger growth rate. Mumbai too grew at 9.7% YoY rate which by all standard considered as high growth given its large base. Delhi and Bengaluru airports are the star performers with 21% YoY growth with the already large passenger base. 

Delhi Airport crosses 50 million passenger mark

Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, the busiest airport in South Asia, has crossed 50 million passenger mark in the last 12 months ending May 2016. The airport which had handled over 48 million passengers in FY2015 is expected to cross 55 million annual passengers milestone in FY2017. In fact going by the growth trend, 55 million figure can even be achieved in CY2016 itself. It had recorded more than 20% MoM passenger growth in eight of the last 12 months and in all five months of 2016 so far.

Top 5 underserved routes from Delhi Airport

According to OAG traffic analyser's report, nine of the top 50 underserved international routes globally either start or end in India. With a significant amount of O&D passenger traffic moving between a city-pair via an intermediate hub, these underserved city-pairs represent potential for additional non-stop capacity. Delhi being India's major aviation hub and prime international gateway, five such underserved routes originate from Delhi Airport. At present all top five underserved routes from Delhi are either served by non-stop flight or about to have non-stop connectivity in the coming months.

Prospective Route: Delhi-Osaka Non-Stop

As it is expected, air passenger traffic between Asian megacities going to dominate the global long-haul air travel market in the coming years. And by 2030 the top 10 Asian megacities will be Tokyo, Delhi, Shanghai, Mumbai, Beijing, Dhaka, Karachi, Osaka, Kolkata and Guangzhou. At present, Delhi is connected to all the above megacities with non-stop flights barring Osaka in Japan. Although Air India operates a three weekly direct flight on the Delhi-Osaka route but it flies via Hong Kong. Air India's one-stop flight on the 6,230 km (3,364 nm) Delhi-Hong Kong-Osaka route is significantly longer than a prospective non-stop flight on the 5,483 km (2,960 nm) Delhi-Osaka route. As a result Air India caters to only 25% of the O&D market. Therefore a non-stop flight would better serve the city-pair and unlock the true potential of the route.

Vistara to go Big with Kolkata

Vistara, the premium full service carrier has extended its service to Kolkata with double daily* flights to Delhi commencing today. Kolkata, the fifth busiest airport in India and the busiest airport in Eastern India, becomes the 17th destination of the airline, it also the third busiest domestic route from Delhi Airport. As of today, Vistara operates a total of 457 weekly flights in a network of 36 routes across India. And the airline plans to increase the number of weekly flights to 580 by the start of the winter schedule 2016-17 (effective 30 October 2016) with Kolkata having the third largest operation after Delhi and Mumbai. Vistara seems to be bullish about its prospect in Kolkata as it plans to operate as many as six-seven daily flights from Kolkata on four different routes by the year end. In the immediate term, it is likely to announce the second route from Kolkata by early next week and it would be interesting to see whether it opens the route to a destination within its existing network (like Mumbai, Bengaluru, Guwahati) or launch a all new destination (like Port Blair).

Vistara team during service launch in Kolkata on 9 June 2016

The Curious Case of Kolkata-Europe direct flight

Currently Kolkata airport lacks any direct link to Europe, so people travelling to European destinations have to fly via Delhi, Mumbai or Middle East hubs. Even smaller cities like Ahmedabad and Amritsar have direct flight to London and Birmingham via Mumbai and Delhi respectively owing to much larger diaspora from Gujarat and Punjab compared to that of Bengal. Kolkata's long-haul international market heavily depends on visiting friends and relatives (VFR) traffic which is often price sensitive therefore a sizable demand for economy-class seats exist but premier class (business-class or higher) demand remains low on European routes.

Madrid & Manila: The missing links in Delhi Airport's network

If one looks at Delhi Airport's current international network of European and Asian destinations, it is connected to 13 European cities and 17 Asia Pacific (east of Delhi) cities with direct flights. Direct flights are available from Delhi to all top 10 busiest airports in Asia* except Jakarta and to all top 10 busiest airports in Europe* except Madrid and Barcelona. In 2015, Madrid was ranked at number 6 in the list of busiest airports in Europe by passenger traffic while Barcelona came at number 10; The Adolf Suarez Madrid-Barajas Airport had handled 46.82 million passengers in 2015 and is also ahead of Delhi Airport in the global ranking as Delhi had handled 45.98 million passengers in the same period. While Barcelona El-Prat Airport had handled 39.71 million passengers in 2015; With currently no flight operating between India and Spain, Madrid emerges as a major missing link in Delhi Airport's European network. Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, the fifth busiest airport in Asia, is expected to get connected with Delhi in 2016 with Indonesian Govt taking initiatives. And  the flag-carrier Garuda Indonesia is the most likely airline to operate on the Jakarta-Delhi route. Though not featured in the list of top 10 Asian airports, Manila is one of the major destinations in Southeast Asia which lacks direct air-connectivity from Delhi, Manila-Ninoy Aquino International Airport had handled 36.68 million passengers in 2015.

Shandong Airlines to cease Delhi-Kunming flight in end March

In November 2015, East China's Jinan based Shandong Airlines had commenced 4 weekly service to Delhi from Kunming. The airline also provides one-stop connection to its hubs in Jinan and Qingdao from Delhi via Kunming. It operates 167 seats Boeing 737-800 aircraft on the 2,574 km Delhi-Kunming route. Kunming, the capital of South-west China's Yunan province, is a major commercial center and the Changshui International Airport is major hub for short-haul international flights to South and South-east Asia. Kunming also one of the nearest Chinese major city from India and a direct flight from Delhi was much awaited. Shandong Airlines's service launch on Delhi-Kunming route in November 2015 therefore was very welcome development which also provides Delhi Airport with connectivity to regional China (Jinan, Qingdao) through one-stop flights. But it seems the airline is withdrawing its Delhi service in summer 2016 season as it has closed booking on the route after 25 March 2016; 

Top 10 international routes from Delhi in 2015

Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi is the busiest airports in India in terms of passenger traffic. In 2015, it had handled total 45.98 million passengers and out of which 13.88 million passengers used international flights to and from Delhi. As per the DGCA data for international city-pair passengers released in mid February, the following is the list of top 10 busiest international route from Delhi Airport with annual passengers data on respective routes. Interestingly, 5 out of top 10 routes are eastward from Delhi while the other 5 is in westward direction. Three Gulf/West Asian airports, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha are featured in the top 10 list while only two long-haul European destinations London and Frankfurt are in the list. At 816 km from Delhi, Kathmandu is the nearest destination among the top 10 while Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore are the three Southeast Asian destinations in the top 10 list. Hong Kong is the only East Asian destination to be featured in the list.

AirAsia X back in Delhi after 4 years

Malaysian long-haul low-cost carrier AirAsia X (IATA code: D7), which used to fly to Delhi till March 2012, has resumed its Kuala Lumpur-Delhi service on 3 February 2016. This time the airline operating Airbus A330-300 aircraft 4 times a week on the route with departure from Delhi on Monday, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday. 2 other Malaysian carriers already operating on the 3,881 km route, while Malaysian Airlines flies Airbus A330 daily, Malindo Air flies Boeing 737 10 times a week. So after the introduction of the new service by AirAsia X, the number of daily flights between Delhi and Kuala Lumpur increased to 3. 

Delhi Airport: Share of International passenger traffic must be improved (PART-1)

Indira Gandhi International Airport (IATA code: DEL) in Delhi is the busiest airport in terms of passenger traffic not just in India but in entire South Asia. In 2015 Delhi Airport had handled 45.98 million passengers, registering a whopping 15.66% growth over passenger figure of 2014. And as predicted in this blog earlier, it is likely to cross 47 million annual passengers traffic by the end of current fiscal year (Apr'15-Mar'16). And at the current growth rate, Delhi Airport to achieve 54-55 million annual passenger traffic in FY2017. In 2014, Delhi Airport had been ranked the 31st busiest airport in the world. And given the positive outlook of Indian aviation sector, which recorded above 20% YoY growth in 2015, it is poised to feature among the top 20 busiest airports globally in the coming years.

Flashback: Vistara's operation through the past 12 months

Vistara team celebrating its Millionth passenger on 23 December 2015

Vistara, the joint-venture airline between Tata group and Singapore Airlines, had started its scheduled flight services last year on 9 January, it is the newest full-service carrier in India. The service launch was kept relatively low-key affair. The airline got its name from the Sanskrit word Vistaar, meaning 'limitless expanse'. Vistara just completes its first year of operations. Here we will revisit its operations, services and some of its achievements through out the past one year. Vistara has achieved several milestone during the course of its one year journey, for example it maintained best on-time performance record for 4 consecutive months (Aug-Nov'15). Achieved first million passenger within its first year of operations. As of November 2015 Vistara has 1.9% market-share in India's domestic aviation market.

Jet Airways moves European Hub to Amsterdam in Summer 2016

Jet Airways, India's largest full-service carrier by market share, is making major restructuring in its European/North American long-haul network in upcoming summer season effective from 27 March 2016. At present it flies to 2 destinations in North America from India via its European scissor hub, Mumbai to Newark and Delhi to Toronto both via Brussels. On 14 December 2015 the airline has announced it would open a new destination in Europe, Amsterdam in summer 2016 and switch its European hub from Brussels to Amsterdam. With this Jet Airways will cease all its flight to Brussels. The airline is also pulling out from Newark, the last US gateway. With the changes made in Jet Airways's network effective from 27 March 2016, Delhi Airport will lose its only flight to Brussels while it will have double daily flight to Amsterdam (KLM and Jet Airways) and Mumbai Airport will get its Amsterdam flight back after a year. Earlier Delta had withdrawn its Amsterdam-Mumbai flight on 28 March 2015. Here is the schedule of Jet Airways's new flights, booking of which has been opened on 15 December 2015. 

Route	Flight No	Departure	Arrival	Effective
DEL-AMS	9W 234	02:35	08:00	Daily from 27 March 2016
AMS-DEL	9W 233	11:40	23:20	Daily from 27 March 2016
YYZ-AMS	9W 233	11:20	13:40	Daily from 26 March 2016
AMS-YYZ	9W 234	19:50	09:15+1	Daily from 27 March 2016
BOM-AMS	9W 232	02:25	08:15	Daily from 27 March 2016
AMS-BOM	9W 231	11:20	23:55	Daily from 27 March 2016

While currently the Brussels flights are operated by a combination of Airbus A330-300 and A330-200 aircraft, all the new flights to Amsterdam will be operated by the 2-class Airbus A330-300 with 34 business-class seats and 259 economy-class seats. With Newark flight being dropped the aircraft on BOM-AMS route will have same day return to Mumbai. Therefor the new schedule will free up1 of the 4 Airbus A330-300 aircraft in Jet Airways fleet. And it will be interesting to see whether the airline deploys the aircraft on a new route or lease it to Etihad which has 24% stake in Jet Airways. It is believed that Jet Airways is dropping Newark, the last US gateway, from its network in favor of Etihad's non-stop flights to North America from Abu Dhabi. Etihad serves 6 destinations in US. 

Jet Airways had launched Brussels as its scissor hub back in 2007. And it used to serve direct flights to Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Newark, New York-JFK and Toronto-Pearson at its peak. But following economic slowdown it had to withdraw Chennai and New York flights in 2012. Shifting base from Brussels to Amsterdam makes sense and it was long expected as Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is the 5th busiest airports in Europe with 54.9 million annual traffic in 2014 while Brussels Airport ranks at 23 with 21.9 million annual traffic in 2014. Moreover Amsterdam is better connected to other European destinations with strong hub-carrier KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Delta on trans-Atlantic flights. Even in terms of India-Europe O&D passenger traffic also Amsterdam stands much ahead of Brussels. As per international city-pair passengers data for Q2 and Q3 2015 released by DGCA. The Delhi-Amsterdam passenger traffic is almost double of in size of Delhi-Brussels traffic.

Period	DEL-AMS	AMS-DEL	Total
Q2 2015	20,711	17,994	38,705
Q3 2015	14,505	13,576	28,081
Total passengers in Q2 + Q3 2015			66,786

Period	DEL-BRU	BRU-DEL	Total
Q2 2015	10,781	7,579	18,360
Q3 2015	10,290	9,369	19,659
Total passengers in Q2 + Q3 2015			38,019

With shifting its European scissor hub to Amsterdam, Jet Airways will enhance its partnership with SkyTeam members KLM and Delta based in Amsterdam. Jet already has code-share partnership with several SkyTeam members including KLM and it will start code-sharing on its new routes with Delta and KLM from 27 March 2016. This strategic partnership with KLM/Delta will allow Jet Airways to code-share on 11 destinations in North America and 30 destinations across Europe from Amsterdam in the coming months. At present it code-share on its Brussels flights with Brussels Airline, a Star Alliance member but the scope is limited given the relatively small size of the airline. Etihad too has good commercial relation with Air France-KLM group. Therefore the move may lead to Jet Airways inching close to full-membership of SkyTeam in next couple of months.