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.

Vistara starts Bengaluru and Guwahati flights from Kolkata

Today the Tata Singapore Airlines joint venture full service carrier, Vistara has commenced two new routes from Kolkata to Bengaluru and Guwahati and thus providing one-stop direct flight connection between Bengaluru and Guwahati via Kolkata. The airline is now operating over 500 weekly flights in a network of 44  routes across 18 destinations. With the launch of Bengaluru and Guwahati routes from Kolkata today, Kolkata comes at per with Mumbai in Vistara's network with four non-stop routes and ranks third in terms of overall operations with seven daily departures following Delhi and Mumbai. Vistara currently has a fleet of 13 Airbus A320-232 aircraft out of which it stations two in Kolkata, one each in Bengaluru and Mumbai while the rest nine are based in its Delhi hub. 

Jet Airways moves further close to SkyTeam

India's largest carrier by international passenger traffic, Jet Airways is showing some development in its long haul network. The airline is upgauging existing Europe capacity by deploying Boeing 777-300ER. Better financial performance over the last few quarters fueled by softening of oil prices is believed to be prompting Jet Airways to expand long-haul capacity after really long time. The airline is taking back six Boeing 777-300ER from Etihad following lease expiry between August and November this year. In March this year, Jet Airways had moved its European scissor hub from Brussels to Amsterdam and entered into extensive codeshare partnership with three SkyTeam members Air France-KLM and Delta on European and trans-Atlantic routes. Now this partnership is being extended through Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. These moves are bringing Jet Airways really close to SkyTeam airline alliance. Jet already share close partnership with major SkyTeam members like Alitalia, Garuda Indonesia, Kenya Airways, Korean Air and Vietnam Airlines. Now, this will be interesting to see whether Jet moves further close to SkyTeam and outright joins the alliance in near future.

Air India rejigs Northeast operations from Kolkata

Starting from the winter schedule, Air India is restructuring its Northeast flights from Kolkata with triangular flights being converted to terminating return flights same as it abandons such routing on international too. The airline is also adding second daily flight to Agartala and increasing frequencies of Aizawl, Dibrugarh, Dimapur and Silchar route from Kolkata at the same time dropping the Dimapur-Dibrugarh route and the Imphal-Aizawl sector while the Aizawl-Imphal sector will still have two-weekly flights. Due to poor demands on these intra-Northeast sectors lead to suspension of these few services where Air India operates its 144 seater all economy Airbus A319 as of today. Bagdogra-Kolkata is the only Northeast route where Air India is scaling back to three weekly service compared to four-weekly during summer.

SpiceJet commences Q400 operations from Kolkata

SpiceJet, the second largest low-cost carrier of India has commenced turbo-prop operations from Kolkata. The Eastern metropolitan city becomes fourth base for the LCC's Bombardier Q400 fleet following Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad. As many as three such aircraft are being stationed in Kolkata which will initially operate to six routes from the city. The airline is adding three new destinations Aizawl, Gorakhpur and Silchar from 4 October 2016 taking the network size to 39 cities in India. While Aizawl, Gorakhpur and Vizag would be complete new route for SpiceJet from Kolkata, Bagdogra and Guwahati are two routes where it already run flights with mainline jets. With these SpiceJet is scaling up its network in Northeast India where its presence was so far limited to Agartala, Bagdogra and Guwahati. The flights to Aizawal and Silchar will further continue up to Guwahati before heading back to Kolkata via those airports therefore adding new CAT-II and CAT-IIA capacity. This is in line with the Government of India's policy of promoting regional connectivity. 

Amritsar gears up for growth, needs network expansion

Delhi is Amritsar's primary domestic destination accounting for more than three fourth of its total domestic passengers (62,670 out of 80,814; 78% as of July 2016). Mumbai and Srinagar are the only other destinations that see non-stop flights from Amritsar and SpiceJet maintains a monopoly on both these routes. Surprisingly till date Delhi-Amritsar sector has remained one of the very few FSC dominated domestic routes in India with seven out of eight daily flights are being operated by full-service carriers. And one more domestic carrier is expected to start Amritsar service from next month. The catchment area of Amritsar airport and the overall Punjab region account for large VFR traffic to and from Australasia, North America and Western Europe but at present the airport lacks any non-stop flight to those places. Therefore, Amritsar-Delhi sector has become very important to both Air India, Jet Airways and their code share partners to feed long-haul flights from Delhi.

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. 

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. 

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.