Leading the pack yet again - IndiGo now corners 36.4% market share

Summarizing 2014

2014 was a year of mixed emotions for Indian Aviation. The industry returned to growth after a brief hiatus post the fall of Kingfisher Airlines and in the latter half of the year saw reduction in prices of Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) on global cues.

With this came the unprecedented but widely forecasted crisis at Spicejet, after few steady months. The year which started on a good note for Spicejet, having performed better than IndiGo in its much touted On Time Performance (OTP) ended with one of the worst performances on the same parameter for the airline, recording a low of 47% on time departures at Delhi in December’14.

Go Air, launched a new station – Bhubaneshwar and deferred delivery of its 20^th aircraft, Air Asia had muted performance with expansion nowhere close to what was being discussed and published.

Jet Airways was resurgent with funding from Abu Dhabi’s Etihad and subsequent changes, while only other Full Service carrier Air India had its own share of problems with the technical glitches on the Dreamliner’s and engineering issues on the Narrow bodies yet made it to Star Alliance.

Well, that leaves us with IndiGo – which continued to expand with more flights between metros and launching flights to few more domestic and international destinations. The airline also, for the first time decided to induct aircraft available in open market as a stop gap arrangement till the A320 NEO are inducted.

IndiGo continued to be a market leader, closing the year with a market share of 31.8% followed by Jet Airways and its subsidiary Jetlite at 21.7%. National carrier Air India garnered 18.4% while Spicejet cornered 17.4%. Go Air failed to breach the double digit mark and ended the year at 9.2% with Air Costa and Air Asia closing at insignificant 0.9% and 0.5% respectively.

2015 begins

Passengers grew 21.33% MoM in January 2015, an indication of return of good times and assertion that growth in capacity is followed by growth in passenger numbers.

The year started with news of change in ownership at Spicejet and launch of Vistara. Both will have an impact on the market in these 12 months of 2015. However, at the end of January, Spicejet was still struggling to get its act in order with an On Time Performance (OTP) of just 34% at Delhi in January. Indeed most of it was affected by fog, but it wasn’t fog alone which led to this performance.

The OTP remained an issue for all airports across the country due to the fog in North & East India which was around for a prolonged period than yesteryears. Normally unaffected stations also saw fog this year which compounded the problem.

January 2015 saw a total of 62.45 lakh passengers taking to the skies, with the month clocking marginally lower Load Factors than December 2014.

Jet Airways clocked the maximum load factors of 87.4 percent for flights operated under Jetlite code (S2) and 87 percent for those operated under Jet Airways (9W), while the lowest load factors were clocked by new comer Vistara which recorded 45.4 percent. Vistara did not have complete month of operations and this was its first month, thus this is too early to judge the performance.

Spicejet saw maximum cancellations and also maximum complaints – a trend that should reverse very soon as funding is tied up and operations are back to normal.

IndiGo continued to outperform competition in market share as well as On Time Performance with overall On Time Performance of 73.3% and a market share of 36.4%. Spicejet had the worst On Time Performance with less than 50% of its flights being on time. This is largely due to its performance at Delhi being hit to a low of 34%.

Go Air has seen its market share slip from over 10% which it achieved twice last year to less than 9% now. With no addition to capacity, the airline will find it tough to hold on to the market share. However, the airline continues to have some monopoly or duopoly routes which the competition is not after. This is either due to slot constraints at Mumbai or the leaders fighting it out with the newbies in the market.

Challenges Ahead

2015 will be a challenging year, Vistara would be flush with funds to expand and Air Asia would be hoping to get back on track with newer routes, planes and a massive expansion if they have to sustain. So far it looks like IndiGo has been able to contain them and made them re-think on the plans they had. Jet Airways will continue its expansion to its middle eastern hub of Abu Dhabi with flights from Ahmedabad and Pune on agenda effective March. This year will also give us an answer on the European hub strategy of Jet Airways.  Spicejet will get its strategy in place with respect to Q400 and B737 and will have another “NEW” network this year.

If all goes well, by year end IndiGo may receive the all new A320 NEO. Spicejet would hope to stabilize the network and operations in first half of the year and take a decision on the Q400s by mid-year. Go Air could well be the next airline to start international operations, most likely a short hop from Mumbai or Delhi.

Lastly, the government will have to get its house in order and iron out differences on the revised Route Dispersal Guidelines and revise the 5/20 rule at the earliest. The battle for Noida airport will increase from here on and so would this be a critical year for Navi Mumbai. Any delay now, will mean the airport opening certainly gets pushed post next general elections

I can only hope for a great 2015 for Indian Aviation !

A delayed Air Asia India experience. Are they taking passengers for a ride?

Air Asia India (IATA:I5) has been operating in Indian skies from June 2014. Personally I have not been impressed by their overall strategy, plan and operations. From the selection of its hub and then moving it, to having a serious foot in mouth syndrome when it comes to declaring profitability predictions and fleet induction strategy. Nothing has gone as per what was published or planned.

I always wanted to fly the new airline, which now has a fleet of just three A320s, all with Sharklets, leased from the parent in Malaysia. The airline launched Pune operations in December 2014 with flights to Bengaluru and Jaipur. As I made my plan for Aero India 2015, I decided to return early but try out Air Asia.

Booking

Effortless booking experience on Air Asia website, which is common for the entire group and not country specific. I find the websites of SpiceJet & IndiGo clutter free as compared to the home page of Air Asia. Quick selection of seats, in which I choose the first free seating, 8F followed by meal selection – Rs. 150 for a Masala Omlette and I was done. The ticket was quickly in my mailbox.

The airline allows check-in up to 14 days in advance and I did not know this. The airline sent an email mentioning that my flight was open for check-in. Indeed very helpful.

The Fiasco!

As I booked the ticket, the flight was showing as a departure of 1530 from Bengaluru (BLR) arriving into Pune (PNQ) at 1700. Going by the past experience of air space closure at Bengaluru, I cross checked on the air space closure. The airport website had official information that airspace will be closed from 1400 – 1700 from 19^th February to 22^nd February which happens to be the air display time at the Aero Show.

I tweeted tagging Air Asia asking if the flight would change. Since Pune airport is closed on all Saturdays from 1100 – 1700 hours, I was sure the flight could not be advanced, it can only be delayed. Yet there has to be a confirmation. As all other airlines continued adjusting the timings, Air Asia did not !

My twitter interaction with the Air Asia team was as below,

After this I got a call from Air Asia team in Bengaluru informing me that in no case will the flight be delayed.

Snapshot of information from BIAL website

On the day of departure, I got an email saying that my revised time of departure is now 1700 hours and not 1530. This was expected because the airport operator will have given a new slot to the airline and cancelled its slot in the closure hour.

Wonder why the airline did not initiate information to passengers till the last minute.

Check-In

I reached the airport early keeping in mind the traffic conditions which I experienced since morning at Bengaluru. The airport was deserted due to the closure and quickly made my way to the check in counters which had some rush.

A quick chat with the check-in agent of Air Asia about the delay and I was informed that the airline wanted to advance the flight to before the closure hour and hence the last minute delay. This reason again does not make sense considering the closure at Pune.

Fail #2

Check in was a smooth experience otherwise with boarding card handed over. I headed for security which was a very quick affair because there were no flights departing till 1700.

Airport Renovation

I have always considered BIAL as an air conditioned warehouse building until recently when they went for an expansion. The expansion has been done very well with gates on the ground floor in addition to the contact gates. The renovation is still in progress and some good food options are coming up. It was very nice to see the expansion work in progress and on track.

Soon the airport will start work on second runway and another terminal. Overall it should be good for the city and the airport.

Boarding

This was utterly messed up affair. The airline said that boarding will commence at 1625 hours. The flight had a load of roughly 163 pax and all of them were at the gate by then. As people started queuing up around 1630, the lone staff informed that there will be a delay of 10 mins or so due to the runway still being closed. Now this was always known !

As the queue became longer, there were conversations between the ground staff and somebody either on the ramp or in office about revised timing for Pune departure. Whatever the passengers could hear on the walkie talkie, it created an impression that everybody was clueless on when this flight would depart.

What is surprising is that an aircraft was available in Bengaluru and the airline was not waiting for an aircraft to land before they can board this flight.

The ground staff kept on delaying boarding, even as two busses of Air India waited for the passengers to board. Finally the staff informed passengers that the runway is still closed and just when the sentence ended, JetAirways B737 took off which led to some cheers and jeers from the waiting passengers.

Slow boarding commenced and we made our way to the aircraft as more and more people came in. I was seated in seat 8F and from what I saw, the baggage loading had completely stopped for a while which led to further delay.

Eventually doors closed at 1743 hours, a good two hours 13 minutes from the scheduled time of departure and 43 minutes from the revised time.

Fail#3

Inflight and meal

The pilot came on PA to apologize for the delay and this was followed by a safety demo while we taxied past Kingfisher and Blue Dart aircraft and lined up on active runway 09 to take off before another Air Asia bird bank left and set course for Pune.

The aircraft was clean, the seats very comfortable as compared to the slim seats of IndiGo and the seat belts neatly arranged. Bright red color of the seat belt along with the black leather seats is a great color combination.

Inflight service started soon. With the cabin crew coming with a tray to passengers who had pre-booked their meals. This makes a huge difference. Couple of points to ponder here for the market leader IndiGo

• Air Asia allows you to choose the exact meal and not a veg or non veg option like IndiGo 
• This ensures that you get exactly what you have ordered unlike in IndiGo where one has to still go through the lucky draw process. Even with a pre booked meal, your choice may not be available.
• You get served first before the on board sales commence.
• Hot Meals! 

These four factors are huge differentiators for Air Asia India and when the expand between Metro routes, could tilt the balance in favor of them especially of the corporate passenger.

The meal was tasty, filling and cheap! This was one case where the taste and cost in air is comparable to that on ground.

The airline should do everything possible to highlight this as part of its sales strategy.

#SuperWin

Deplaning

We landed smoothly on runway 28 at Pune and parked at Gate 2. The pilot came on PA informing the cruising altitude of 36000 feet and the outside temperature of -45 degree C. The airline could also announce the outside temperature at destination post landing. Just a additional brownie point.

I did not have any check in luggage but while I walked till the baggage belts, the luggage had started arriving, which is very fast and commendable.

Overall verdict

The airline will give tough fight to the competition if it gets it operations in order. While this was my first flight, I have read about the delays from a lot of friends and also some news items in the newspapers here in Pune. The delay experience was certainly something which has not been handled well.

I would give full marks to inflight – seating, comfort, service and food.

Now the last question – Will I fly again? I will, but not immediately. I will wait for the operations to stabilize and have more positive feedback on this before I book again.

Also, with the fog season behind us, the airline operations to the north should stabilize and February – May On time performance will be a good parameter to judge the airline.

Flight Summary

I5 – 1424 Bengaluru to Pune

STD: 1530, RTD: 1700; ATD: 17:55

STA: 1700, RTA: 1830, ATA: 19:05

Aircraft: VT-RED

MSN: 5824 Airbus A320 with Sharklets. Operated before as 9M- AQW

The Aviation Weekly

1. Air Asia changes flight timings to Jaipur & Chandigarh in Winter schedule

As Air Asia India awaits delivery of its third aircraft VT-ATD, it has made changes to its network in winter schedule. The flights to Jaipur & Chandigarh have been swapped, mostly in view of fog at Chandigarh.

I5 1824 BLR0940 – 1235 IXC D

I5 1825 IXC1300 – 1600BLR D

I5 1722 BLR1630 – 1905JAI D

I5 1723 JAI1935 – 2200BLR D

IndiGo operates the Bengaluru – Chandigarh route non-stop and Jet Airways & SpiceJet offer a one stop service via Delhi, while IndiGo and Air Costa operate non-stop on the Bengaluru Jaipur sector.

2. IndiGo expands yet again

After launching flights to Bengaluru, Goa & Coimbatore from Delhi, IndiGo is expanding on the Delhi – Chennai sector with additional 2 flights each way. This will take the total count of flights on this sector by the airline to 7 Daily and will now have highest flights on this sector ahead of Air India – which operates 5x Daily, SpiceJet – which operates 4x Daily and Jet Airways – Which operates 3x Daily

6E602 DEL0830 – 1050MAA D

6E603 MAA1120 – 1425DEL D

6E547 DEL1345 – 1620MAA D

6E605 MAA1650 – 1930DEL D

3. Spicejet flight number changes

As part of network changes in Winter schedule, Spicejet has changed flight numbers for flights operated by its Q400 aircraft. Through flights like Delhi – Jabalpur – Mumbai, which is done by same aircraft and has same flight number, is now being changed to have two different flight numbers on the Delhi – Jabalpur and Jabalpur – Mumbai leg. The existing SG 2441 will now be SG 2451 from Delhi to Jabalpur and SG 2454 from Jabalpur to Mumbai.

The same has also been done on the Hyderabad – Pune – Goa leg. This would mean that when passenger purchases a Hyderabad – Goa ticket via Pune, the passenger would now have to carry two boarding cards instead of one. Additional Cost? Certainly yes!

4. Air Costa introduces flights on Chennai – Jaipur

Air Costa, which had some aircraft issues during the last few months, plans to come back strong in the winter schedule. The airline will operate non-stop flights between Chennai & Jaipur and will be the only airline to do so.

The flights would operate at below timings.

LB634 MAA1705 – 1940JAI D

LB635 JAI2005 – 2245MAA D

Currently, only IndiGo offers same aircraft services from Chennai to Jaipur

5. Jet Airways delays flights on Pune – Abu Dhabi & Ahmedabad – Abu Dhabi sector

Jet Airways, which was recently in news for expansion as well as issues related to pilot training and was operating A330 aircraft on the domestic sector to tide over pilot shortage has decided to delay the introduction of flights to Abu Dhabi.

The flights from Lucknow, Goa, Ahmedabad & Pune, which were to start on 14^th November will now be introduced in a phased manner, with the Ahmedabad & Pune link to be introduced later.

To get slots at Pune, the airline had gone to an extend of asking parking permission on the taxi-way, which was rightly rejected. The airline had kept its flights on the Delhi – Pune – Delhi sector on hold to accommodate the flight to Abu Dhabi.

As per latest GDS display, the night parked aircraft in Pune continues to operate to Bengaluru in the morning, and the additional flights planned on Delhi – Pune and Mumbai – Pune (International Connector) have been rolled back, all possibly due to pilot shortage