Air Canada returns to New Delhi effective November’15

In an unexpected announcement, Air Canada (IATA code AC) announced resumption of services to New Delhi (IATA code: DEL) beginning November’15. (Winter Schedule-2015). The flights will be operated by B787 Dreamliner aircraft, and the press release claims this will be the first route with the longer range B787-9, which will operate on two of three weekly services proposed by the airline.

The airline will operate this non-stop service four times a week,

Flight	From	To	Depart	Arrive	Days of the week
AC050	Toronto	Delhi	20:55	21:15 (+ 1 day)	Monday*, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday
AC051	Delhi	Toronto	00:45	05:00	Tuesday, Wednesday*,Thursday, Sunday

Departure from Toronto on Monday & from Delhi on Wednesday will be operated by B787-800.

Historic and current links to Canada

While Air India operated Amritsar – Delhi – Toronto flight, the same was pulled out owning to heavy losses in May’12. Air Canada also,in the past operated flights on the Toronto – Delhi sector. Both the airlines had flown this route with the B777 variants and Air Canada will benefit from the favorable economics of the B787 over the B777.

Currently only Jet Airways operates a flight to Toronto, via its hub at Brussels from Delhi, with connections from Mumbai.  With talks of Jet Airways shifting its hub from Brussels to Amsterdam or to Abu Dhabi, the future of flights to Toronto would be in question.

B787 – Dreamliner

The aircraft has its share of problems across the globe, including with Indian national carrier Air India. While Air India has two class configurations, Air Canada has configured its Dreamliner’s (B787-800 variant) in three class configurations with 20 Business, 21 Premium Economy and 210 Economy class seats. The Star Alliance member is yet to reveal the configurations of its longer B787-900 variant.  

While the B787-900 will have wingspan and fuselage same as those of the -800 variant, it is expected to be longer by 6 meters and higher Maximum Take Off Weight (MTOW), with a range of 15372km, compared to 14500km of the smaller B787-800 variant.

Delhi Hub & Connectivity

Not long ago, Star Alliance had made intentions clear about having a hub at Delhi along with Mumbai. Clearly the entry of Air India in Star Alliance is helping Delhi develop itself as a hub, along with attracting global traffic.

As per existing schedules of Air India, the inbound flight would connect to multiple destinations

Inbound
Connection Time	Destination
1 - 3 hours	Mumbai(AI), HongKong(AI), Bangkok(TG)
3 - 6 hours
6 - 9 hours	Ahmedabad(AI), Lucknow(AI), Pune(AI)
9+ hours	Khatmandu(AI), Hyderabad(AI), Chennai(AI), Kolkata(AI), Kochi(AI)

Outbound
Connection Time	Destination
1 - 3 hours	Chennai(AI), Mumbai(AI), Ahmedabad(AI), Kochi(AI), Kolkata(AI), Bangkok(TG)
3 - 6 hours	Singapore(SQ), Pune(AI), Hongkong(AI), Lucknow(AI)
6 - 9 hours
9+ hours

Re-timings would help Air Canada connect both ways to Singapore on Singapore Airlines, while it would already connect to Bangkok on Thai Airways – both Star Alliance members.

Concerns

While this new link is a welcome move, the traffic between Canada & India has remained stagnant for a while. The traffic patterns are mainly seasonal and there are ample options available via Europe, Middle East & the USA.

Resistance of Canadian government to grant more rights to Middle Eastern carriers and requirement of US visa for transit would benefit this non-stop service of Air Canada. 

Aviation Weekly

The WS14 schedule comes in effect from 26^th October’14, airlines in India and world over are busy making schedule changes. Across the world, leading airlines make changes in the schedule well in advance to ensure that bookings are open for right flights.

However, the story changes completely in India. An airline like Jet Airways which has a large & extensive network, simply replicates the schedule of last winter to this winter and same for summer. People tend to see a lot of flights, which the airline has not flown and will not fly, open in the reservation system. The same would get cancelled few weeks before the start of schedule and inconvenience the passengers.

This also has financial impact, since every GDS change is charged to the airline, and hence large number of transactions has a drag on the company finances.

This winter schedule will see Jet Airways shifting focus to Abu Dhabi, launching flights from more cities in India to Abu Dhabi along with further changes on the domestic network, IndiGo trying to expand and prevent Air Asia from expanding, Spicejet trying to consolidate and stabilize with reduction in capacity and Go Air launching a new station with the existing fleet.

GoAir launches Bhubaneshwar

Go Air is launching flights to Bhubaneshwar, effective winter schedule. The flights would connect Bhubaneshwar to Kolkata, Mumbai & Delhi. The flights would operate as below.

G8161 DEL0610 – 0815BBI D

G8162 BBI0845 – 1110DEL D

G8163 DEL1645 – 1855BBI D

G8164 BBI1925 – 2130DEL D

G8243 CCU0920 – 1030BBI D

G8244 BBI1830 – 1940CCU D

G8243 BBI1100 – 1335BOM D

G8244 BOM1540 – 1755BBI D

This will be 22^nd station for Go Air and a new station after 2012, when Chennai & Port Blair were launched. Go Air has launched this without any addition to its fleet and operates 19 aircraft across its network.

IndiGo is the dominant player at Bhubaneshwar with flights to Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Vizag, Mumbai, Chennai & Hyderabad. Go Air is attempting to fill in the void created by Jet Airways when it pulled out of Bhubaneshwar as part of network restructuring. Jet Airways was a dominant carrier once upon a time with double daily flights to Kolkata and direct flights to Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Raipur and Chennai.

IndiGo expands, again!

IndiGo, recently in news for placing a 250 aircraft A320 NEO order, and a deal with Tiger airways is adding capacity on domestic sector.

Effective winter schedule, it is adding flights on Bengaluru – Delhi and Delhi – Goa sector. This will be 9^th Daily flight on Bengaluru – Delhi and 4^th Daily on Delhi – Goa.

6E399 DEL1150 – 1450GOI D

6E398 GOI1445 – 1720DEL D

6E507 DEL1840 – 2050BLR D

6E508 BLR0820 – 1050DEL D

Considering the long gap at Bengaluru, from 2050 till 0820, an international leg in future may not be ruled out. The international leg could be to one of its existing stations, with Dubai being the most likely and the alternative being Singapore.

IndiGo adding second daily to Coimbatore

IndiGo will add one rotation from 17^th November from Delhi, which will operate Delhi – Coimbatore – Chennai – Kolkata and vice versa. This will be 2^nd Daily non-stop service on the Delhi – Coimbatore sector, 3^rd Daily on Chennai – Coimbatore and 5^th Daily on Chennai – Kolkata sector.

IndiGo has monopoly on the non-stop Delhi – Coimbatore sector, whereas it would have maximum seats & frequency on Kolkata – Chennai sector, where Air India and Spicejet operate one and three daily flights respectively

The new flights would operate as below.

6E397 DEL0640 – 0925CJB D

6E272 CJB1000 – 1055MAA D

6E272 MAA1140 – 1345CCU D

6E275 CCU1415 – 1645MAA D

6E275 MAA1715 – 1820CJB D

6E396 CJB1850 – 2200DEL D

This rotation will start after delivery of its 100^th aircraft on order and last of the initial order placed in 2005. The aircraft is likely to be registered as VT-IAY.

Jet Airways, operated the Coimbatore – Chennai – Kolkata leg as part of its Ahmedabad – Bengaluru – Coimbatore – Chennai – Kolkata rotation but pulled out after operating for two seasons.

This is a classic case of how a lean airline with low cost base can sustain, survive and grow as compared to one with financial liability. Only IndiGo has survived on the Ahmedabad – Bengaluru sector, which has been tried and shut by other airlines like Jet Airways, Go Air and Spicejet.

Air India takes delivery of another Dreamliner, upgrades flights to Bangkok

Air India recently took delivery of its 17^th B787 Dreamliner aircraft, registered VT-ANR.

Air India which operated Mumbai – Bangkok – Mumbai and Delhi – Bangkok – Delhi flights on A321, is upgraded these sectors to B787 Dreamliner, effective 14^th October.

The timings are as below

AI330 BOM0200 – 0745BKK D

AI333 BKK0855 – 1200DEL D

AI332 DEL1340 – 1935BKK D

AI331 BKK2050 – 2340BOM D

These new flights give another swapping opportunity and better rotate the B787 in Air India’s fleet.

The domestic segment of this flight, AI330 Goa – Mumbai, continues to be operated at existing timings with A321.

This comes after Air India started flying direct on the Mumbai – Singapore sector, changing its earlier rotation of Mumbai – Chennai – Singapore – Chennai – Mumbai. The new rotation, Mumbai – Singapore – Chennai – Singapore – Mumbai, gives it an edge over relatively lucrative Mumbai – Singapore sector but has to compete with Singapore Airlines A380 flights at similar timings along with Jet Airways which operates double daily flights onboard the B737.

Chennai – Singapore sector is considered one of the lowest in terms of RASK and thus timings may not make a big impact either ways

Air India re-introduces flights to Vadodara

With the Minister of Finance of Gujarat Government going public and requesting Air India to re-start flights to Vadodara, Air India seems to have taken note and restarted flights. Earlier the flight was operated by CRJ-700 and now this would be operated by A320

The flight would operate as below,

AI819 DEL0625 – 0800BDQ D A320

AI820 BDQ0835 – 1015DEL D A320

The flights will be operated by all economy A320

Spicejet cancels select flights

SpiceJet, the only operator on Mumbai – Surat sector has withdrawn flights till further notice. The announcement was done on Twitter. The airline started Surat with operations from Delhi and Mumbai and last season changed to have separate flights to operate Kolkata – Bengaluru – Mumbai – Surat and vice versa, and Delhi – Surat – Delhi with one way connection to Kolkata.

The Bengaluru – Mumbai – Bengaluru leg of the flight is not available for booking till the beginning of Winter Schedule.

Spicejet re-delivers another aircraft

Spicejet has re-delivered another aircraft, VT-SPT, which was named Clove. The aircraft was ferried to Dublin, Ireland via Ankara, Turkey. VT-SPT was B737-900ER and with Spicejet for close to 7 years. The number of B737-900 in fleet is down to 5.