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. 

January 2016: Performances of Indian carriers in domestic aviation market

Indian airlines carried total 76.55 lakh (7.65 million) passengers in the domestic sector in January 2016. Continuing its run with above 20% year on year growth rate, the domestic aviation market recorded 22.58% growth in January over the same period a year ahead. While IndiGo maintained its top position in terms of domestic market share, SpiceJet continued to outperform others in terms of load factors with above 90% PLF and Vistara topped the on-time performance charts in January 2016; Among the other notable highlights, Vistara has registered 900% MoM growth in its January passengers figure and SpiceJet regained its million monthly passengers figure after a gap of 14 months.

IndiGo recorded almost 20% MoM growth in its January passenger numbers but could not beat its best ever performance in May 2015 when it carried record 27.69 lakh passengers despite adding capacity and new routes in the meantime. While Jet Airways and Air India came at second and third position respectively, recorded moderate growth in passengers numbers over that of January 2015; SpiceJet recorded the highest MoM growth in passenger numbers, carried 10.11 lakh passengers compared to 5.87 lakh in January 2015, immediately after the December 2014 crisis. It has also regained more than million monthly passengers after a gap of 14 months, it had recorded million monthly passengers last time in October 2014; GoAir too recorded double digit MoM growth in its January passengers figure.

Among the 'new' carrier Vistara recorded a whopping 900% YoY growth in its monthly passenger numbers, while AirAsia India too achieved 116% increase in its monthly passenger numbers in January 2016 compared to that of January 2015; Air Costa was the only airline which actually registered a negative growth in its passenger numbers which saw 9.2% YoY decrease in its January 2016 passenger figures. Both TruJet and Air Pegasus had not commenced their operation in January 2015; 

In January 2016, almost all 'old' airlines, except SpiceJet, have lost market share compared to January 2015; While IndiGo maintained its leadership position with 35.6% market share in January but it is more than 3.0 percentage point down from its lifetime high 38.9% which it had recorded in May 2015; Jet Group as expected came second with 21.4% (combined market share of Jet Airways and Jet Lite) and it has almost maintained the January 2015 market share. But there exists a steady gap of around 15% between No 1 IndiGo and No 2 jet Airways; National carrier Air India continued losing its market share and achieved 16% market share in January which is around 3.0 percentage point down from its January 2015 (18.7%) market share. GoAir achieved 8.1% market share in January 2015 vs 8.9% in January 2015; SpiceJet was the only 'old' airline to have reported a major increase in its market share compared to that a year before. Following the December 2014's financial crisis, SpiceJet's market share fell sharply to 9.4% in January 2015 while it achieved 13.2% in January 2016;
Among the 'new' airlines all airlines have increased their market share except Air Costa. While AirAsia India and Vistara almost maintained their lifetime best market share of December 2015, Air Costa saw a decrease in its market share from 1.0% in January 2015 to 0.8% in January 2016; Two new regional carriers TruJet and Air Pegasus achieved 0.4 and 0.3% market share respectively in January 2016;

As usual Vistara occupied the top position in the OTP chart of January 2016; And it has reported highest OTP for six straight months. But January being peak fog season at its hub Delhi Airport, Vistara's overall OTP was at below 90% for the first time in its 13 months operation. While Jet Airways, IndiGo, SpiceJet all three recorded nearly 75% flights on-time, GoAir and Air India were at the sub 70% level. But AirAsia India came as the worst performing airline in terms of on-time performance and recorded just 56% flights on-time.

SpiceJet has maintained its leadership position in terms of passenger load factor and recorded more than 90% PLF for nine straight months. While all other airlines recorded their PLF between 80 and 85%, Vistara was the only airline to record sub 80% PLF in January 2016 although it has improved a lot from the poor PLF figures of early 2015. Though Vistara could not beat its lifetime high PLF of 77.6% recorded in December 2015, its January 2016 PLF stands at second position in its 13 months operation. All other airlines except Air India, Jet Airways and IndiGo, recorded an increase in their load factors compared to their performance in January 2015;

2015: Domestic vs international capacity of Indian carriers

Indian carriers had carried total 99.48 million passengers in 2015 while 81.09 million passengers flew on domestic routes, the rest 18.39 million were international passengers. Currently almost all the Indian carriers, with exception of Air India Express, are heavily focused on the high growth domestic market which grew at record 20% rate in 2015. It is evident from the above chart that the incumbent Indian carriers are more interested in operating in India rather on international routes. Just have a look at the case of IndiGo, the market leader in terms of annual passengers carried, its international capacity is disproportionately low compared its overall passengers in 2015.

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.

December 2015: New flights raining at Indian airports

Air India Boeing 777-200LR

It is December and new flights are raining at airports across India. Typically airlines commence new flight services around the beginning of summer and winter season which start from last Sunday of March and last Sunday of October respectively. But there is a whole lot of new flights starting in December this time. Obviously it signals good times of Indian aviation as it continues to grow at double-digit and became the fastest growing major aviation market in the world. Although the growth is primarily led by foreign carriers which are either starting new routes, increasing frequencies on existing routes or upgrading the present capacity with change in aircraft. But it is the national carrier Air India which had captured maximum headlines with  its launch of Delhi-San Francisco (DEL-SFO) non-stop flight on Dec. 2; 

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.