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. 

Saudia changes India operations in W16

In the upcoming winter 2016-17 schedule effective from 30 October 2016, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Saudia  making major changes in its Indian operations. This includes dropping Dammam-Bengaluru sector while other routes see capacity augmentation. The airline increasing Jeddah flight frequencies from Delhi and Mumbai and Riyadh flight frequencies from Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai. While Hyderabad flights see operating aircraft being upgauged from Airbus A330-300 to Boeing 777-200ER to both Jeddah and Riyadh. 

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. 

On-time performance: Indian metro airports lead over Chinese hubs

In terms of passenger volume, Chinese metro airports are way ahead of major Indian airports. The passenger traffic of top three airports (Beijing-Capital, Shaghai-Pudong and Guangzhou) in mainland China beat Delhi Airport which is India's busiest airport. China has seven of its top airports listed in the world's top 50 busiest airports while India has only two airports in the same list. But when it comes to on-time performance, a key parameter for efficient airport operations, Indian airports are performing better than Chinese metro airports.

On-time performance of India's four metro airports as of May 2016

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.

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. 

What if '5/20' rule goes tomorrow?

VT-TTB, the first A320 aircraft of Vistara at Delhi Airport.

The so called '5/20' rule which restricts Indian airlines with less than 5 years of domestic flying experience and a fleet size of less than 20 from flying on international routes, was introduced in 2004, close to the arrival of low-cost carriers (LCC) in India. It was meant to protect the then incumbent players like Air India, Air Sahara, Jet Airways from the potential competition from new entrants like Air Deccan, Kingfisher Airlines, SpiceJet and others. On October 30, the Ministry of civil aviation (MoCA), the nodal ministry on aviation has released a draft policy called 'National civil aviation policy 2015' (NCAP 2015). And the MoCA is expected to come up with the final aviation policy by the year end. One of the proposals on the draft policy includes revision of '5/20' rule, either partial or complete removal of it. Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA), the lobbying group consisting Jet Airways, SpiceJet, IndiGo and GoAir, is actively opposing any relaxation in the '5/20' rule.

It is time for Delhi Airport to go Big!

Busy immigration area at Terminal 3 of Delhi Airport

Indira Gandhi International Airport or popularly Delhi Airport, India's and indeed South Asia's busiest airport by annual passenger volume, had handled 39.75 million passengers in 2014. Since 2009, it had occupied the position of country's busiest airport replacing Mumbai. And for the year 2014, Delhi Airport was awarded with the title of 'World's Best Airport' in the 25-40 million annual passengers category by the Airport Council International. But it will be challenging for Delhi to defend the title this time. As in 2015 it is going to enter the big club of airports with beyond 40 million annual passenger volume. Currently it is one of the fastest growing major airports in the world, growing at a double digit rate in 2015. In the first two quarters of the current fiscal year (FY2016: Apr'15-Mar'16), Delhi airport has already clocked 22.76 million passengers, an increase of ~15% over the traffic for the same period in the previous year (~15% YoY). And it is expected to cross 46 million passengers by the end of this fiscal. At the current rate of growth (~15% YoY) Delhi airport is likely to cross 60 million annual passengers milestone by FY2018 (see Figure:1). Being optimistic, if the present macro-economic environment persists Delhi Airport to reach its full capacity of 100 million before FY2024. But if you look at the present expansion plans of Delhi international airport limited (DIAL) it seems insufficient.

Vistara to achieve the milestone of one million passengers by 2015 end?

VT-TTB, the first A320 aircraft of Vistara at Delhi Airport.

Vistara, the joint venture airline between Tata group and Singapore Airlines, is the newest full service carrier in India. Starting scheduled flight services on 9 January 2015 the airline had already crossed the milestone of flying 5 lakh* (0.5 million) passengers on 20 August 2015, just over seven months into operations. Now it will be interesting to see whether Vistara can achieve the first one million passengers mark by the end of 2015 or by the first year of its operations. Almost a year back the airline had started with a fleet of only two aircraft and launched operations to only three destinations initially. Then the airline has experienced a rapid growth as it gradually increased its fleet size to eight as of today and almost added a new destination a month into its network. Currently, Vistara serves twelve destinations across India distributed among Tier-I, Tier-II and Tier-III cities as per ministry of civil aviation's (MoCA) route dispersal guidelines. The twelve cities are Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Goa, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Bagdogra, Pune, Lucknow, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar and Varanasi in the chronology of those being included into the network.