More thoughts on rivalry between IndiGo and Air Asia India

Last week I wrote how IndiGo is going all out to take on Air Asia India. Yes it is right, that competition has to be contained at early stages and some bit of sentimental expansion like announcing a Bengaluru – Chandigarh but tagging along Srinagar to make it more successful makes a lot of sense.

Over the weekend, I thought more on this, and some interesting facts came up. When Air Asia India launches its second rotation, it would do 16 flights a day with its 2 aircraft and would deploy 2880 seats in the market, while IndiGo with its roughly 516 daily flights, deploys 92880 seats. So 2 bad flights for Air Asia means 12.5% of their capacity for the day is sold on lower yields or that’s not sold as per expectation, while for IndiGo – it means just 0.38% !!

What next – Will Air Asia start the battle and mount a second daily to Chandigarh? And if that is followed by IndiGo? Too bad, it would still mean, not more than 1% of capacity of IndiGo, while it could mean a lot more for Air Asia India.

As the biggest player it makes sense for IndiGo to go after the newbies who are in with the same model as theirs and a more established brand in the region owing to their presence in multiple locations.

Air Asia India, has not done their homework well. I remember reading a supplement of Business Standard in 2006, and I think that was the first supplement which used to cover aviation exclusively. If I remember correctly, Nusli Wadia was quoted as saying “If we fill up the planes, it is at lower costs, and if we increase the fare, there are no passengers”. I will not really quote him here, because I don’t remember the exact words, but the meaning was this and that continues in Indian skies, even today.

Announcing sale as a measure of increasing revenue is a good way abroad, but not in India, because it hardly simulates the market, it only ensures that the person who was supposed to fly, books early. No extra bums on the seats. What more, the airline announcing the sale, thinks that they can fill up seats last minute at very high costs, but some other airline announces the sale for the same period, and you are forced to match it.

Thinking from a Network Planners perspective, I keep thinking if IndiGo will launch a new station to take on Air Asia, or will it launch frequencies to guard its own fort? Will Air Asia be better off launching flights to Mangalore, Calicut, Madurai, Trichy from Bengaluru where I presume that chances of IndiGo following them are marginal or does Air Asia think that there is no market at these places because IndiGo does not operate at these stations!

I am told there are some interesting routes coming up for AirAsia, and most of them are routes where IndiGo already operates non-stop flights. It’s a lost battle for Air Asia India, if they are going to keep chasing IndiGo. Why am I complaining? It’s eventually for the better of consumers! Yes, I am complaining because the industry will not sustain and because I am in Pune and not benefitting out of this J

Creating Ripples before taking to the air - Vistara the latest airline in India

Vistara – the new kid on the block was unveiled in a grand ceremony yesterday in Delhi. People rightly have a lot of expectations from this airline; because it is backed by the iconic Singapore Airlines which holds 49% and the rest owned by TATA’s which I am sure will give better service than their telecom arm – TATA Communications / Docomo.

While the airline is yet to launch, and the first aircraft, to be registered as VT-TTB is in the paint shop, it has already created ripples in the skies, with Jet Airways announcing moving to a single brand strategy the same evening. These two may not be related, but certainly a lot of thought would have gone into moving to one brand strategy at Jet due to the expected, then un-named, venture of TATA’s with SIA.

Jet Airways for a long time, had confused people and themselves with 3 brands – Mainline, Konnect and Lite and later with two, yet, they continued to believe that was the right strategy. While KFA inherited a functional LCC and rebranded it, Jet inherited a functional FSC and went in for a rebranding and a change in service type.

I happened to see some bits of the press conference yesterday, and Mr. Goyal wasn’t reinventing the wheel, but just going back to basics. I wonder why he and his airline moved away from the basics! On-Time performance, Clean Aircraft, Large Network, Good Connections – all these at decent fares… That’s all the passengers want anyways. Jet should have taken the decision to move to single brand FSC model long back, the right time probably was immediately after the demise of KFA.

Back to Vistara – now that the name is firmed up, along with the lively crew uniforms, it’s time to gear up and be battle ready. A lot is being expected because India lacks a true Full Service Carrier. While Kingfisher in the later days, decided to have a particular sector as mainline or LCC, Jet airways never even did that, having all sorts of flights on Metro as well as tier-2 cities. Air India losing out on its On Time performance, and Jet Airways service, aircraft and food becoming a lucky draw with every flight being a different one, it was time for some airline to capture the FSC space.

The success of Vistara will depend a lot on the configuration they choose. Yesterday’s ceremony talked about Premium Economy, and no First class, but it will be Premium economy / European Business or will it be Business, Premium Economy and Economy like what United has in USA, only time will tell. The most optimum mix in Indian skies is probably 8/156, which Kingfisher was trying to achieve before they went kaput and the best that can be achieved is 12/144 but filling up those 12 seats is a challenge for afternoon flights between metros and a day long challenge for leisure routes. The number of seats in the front cabin will also dictate the number of inflight crew on board.

Wishing good luck and long innings to the new airline!

Let the battle begin. . IndiGo launches non-stop Bengaluru - Chandigarh service to counter Air Asia India

For last few days, I was itching to get back to Network Planning – a hobby I have pursued for over 15 years now, and started in the days when I would ask anybody flying around – mostly my father, to get the printed schedule of the airline and then break it down into rotations, aircraft by aircraft. It also was a great way to kill time on the flights whenever I traveled then.

The advent of technology, my stint in Network Planning with Kingfisher and later with Go Air, only increased my knowledge, understanding and interest. While today, I work in the transportation gamut as a whole, the hobby continues.

The itch stopped yesterday, as IndiGo announced a non-stop service on Bengaluru – Chandigarh route, because I think the expansion and capacity induction for the next year or so will be sentimental and not based on analysis, traffic patterns and sustainable growth. Nonetheless,  as an avid Network Planning enthusiast, I have the best seat – on the fence , to see how things turn up.

As tweets started trickling in about IndiGo’s pullout from Delhi – Bangkok sector (I think IndiGo has not yet confirmed this but flights are not open for sale), I checked the timings of those flights and realized that one aircraft would be free, which I was sure, would be deployed on domestic routes, and wrote about this on my blog  post 

IndiGo yesterday opened up reservation on Bengaluru – Chandigarh non-stop service  effective 1^st September. The entire rotation is designed to take on Air Asia.

6E498 BLR0630 – 0745GOI D (Eff. 3^rd Sept)

6E499 GOI0815 – 0930BLR D (Eff. 3^rd Sept)

6E477 BLR1000 – 1255IXC D (Eff. 1^st Sept)

6E477 IXC1325 – 1425SXR D (Eff. 1^st Sept)

6E478 SXR1455 – 1555IXC D (Eff. 1^st Sept)

6E478 IXC1625 – 1930BLR D (Eff. 1^st Sept)

6E561 BLR2000 – 2110TRV D (Eff. 1^st Sept)

6E562 TRV2140 – 2250BLR D (Eff. 1^st Sept)

Am I reading too much or is Trivandrum the next destination for Air Asia?

Jet Airways and the least expected – Air India, have jumped into this game of capacity and frequency with Jet Airways, currently 3x Daily on Bengaluru – Kochi, will be 5x Daily. The afternoon frequency will operate on all days except Tuesday owning to closure in Bengaluru.

Jet Airways flights are effective 11^thAugust and Air India, will have additional utilization of their ATR-42 based in Bengaluru, effective 1^st September.

The flight count on this sector is now 13 each way, which obviously changes depending on day of the week. For a random check which I did while writing this piece, Air Asia flights were available for Rs.990/- each way for September first week, cheaper than the Volvo between the two cities and if Air Asia can break even by December at these fares, I wonder how their financials and aircraft leases are structured!

Only sane news which has come in the last week is that of Air India increasing frequency on the Amritsar – Delhi – Birmingham route to Daily from its current 4x weekly. Glad to know how Delhi as a hub is working for Air India and how B787 DreamLiner is turning a new page and opening up new routes which are successful

As for the domestic scenario – The player with deeper pockets will win again and the consumer will be the winner, sadly only the consumer based on Bengaluru seems to be the winner right now. What more, the over all winner could well be Spicejet, who has so far not shown any inclination to jump in this battle and is busy consolidating its position and salvaging its situation in the market. 

Aviation Weekly -1#Aug

Air Costa increases flights to Madurai

Regional carrier Air Costa has increased flights on the Chennai – Madurai – Chennai sector. The new flights will be effective 6^th August and operate as below

LB640 MAA1040 – 1135IXM D

LB641 IXM1155 – 1250MAA D

SpiceJet pulls out of Mysore

Spicejet, which is the sole carrier to Mysore, operating 5x weekly from Bengaluru with a one stop from Chennai, is pulling out flights effective 1^st September.

Spicejet has tried different routings for this route, including a direct flight from Chennai.

Spicejet increases frequency for limited period on select sectors

Spicejet is adding limited period flights to Bengaluru, Hyderabad and onwards to Tirupati. The aircraft would operate Delhi – Hyderabad – Tirupati – Hyderabad – Delhi – Bengaluru – Delhi from Friday to Monday, and run till 8^th September

IndiGo stops booking for flights on Delhi – Bangkok sector

Domestic leader IndiGo, has stopped bookings for its flights to crisis ridden Thailand’s capital Bangkok from Delhi effective 1^st September. Flights on Kolkata – Bangkok sector are open for sale.

IndiGo has yet not pulled out of a station completely, having launched Chennai – Singapore flights, when it cancelled flights to Singapore from Mumbai and Delhi.

The cancellation of Delhi – Bangkok double daily flights will free up one aircraft which could well be deployed on the domestic route to take on Air Asia India.

Air India re-times Singapore – Delhi flight to offer more connections

Effective 21^st August, Air India will re-time its Singapore – Delhi departure to help connect passengers boarding in Singapore to Frankfurt, Paris, Rome & Milan via its Delhi Hub. The advancement is being done by swapping aircrafts in Singapore, with the Mumbai – Chennai – Singapore flight being shifted from A330 to B787. Delhi – Singapore operated with B787. This will result in delayed departure to Chennai and onwards to Mumbai

Air India re-times flights to Moscow to offer more connections

Air India which recently launched 4x weekly flights to Moscow, will re-time their flights effective Winter schedule to have better connections. I have been arguing that the late night departure is not helping get connections at Russia end. However, this re-time is more to get connections to Australia.

The revised timings would be as below, effective 26^th October

AI155 DEL1940 – 2320DME

AI156 DME0100 – 0855DEL