Airlines are flying with flat capacity this winter. today news

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) released the summary of the approved northern winter schedule for domestic airlines in India. The regulator has approved a total of 25,007 weekly flights, an increase of 3.2 percent compared to the last summer schedule and 5.3 percent compared to last winter.

Vistara’s flights are allowed separately in the schedule, but they will merge with Air India on November 12, making Air India the undisputed number two in the Indian skies – a rank that will remain unchanged given its expansion plans in the future. Hua may lose its subsidiary Air India Express.

The highest sequential growth among major airlines has been seen in the integrated Air India Express, which is seeing a growth of 16.2 per cent. This is an increase of 45 percent compared to last winter.

Sequentially, state-owned Alliance Air, SpiceJet and Flybig are shrinking. Despite GoFirst’s decline and SpiceJet’s shrinking, the schedule has gone ahead of the pre-Covid schedule. The schedule also includes operationalization of 124 airports, whereas the previous schedule had approval for 125 airports. In all likelihood, commercial operations at both Navi Mumbai and Jewar-based Noida airports will be extended till the summer schedule, starting from the last Sunday of March next year.

Unfortunately, not all airlines operate flights in line with the permitted number. The current schedule allows 24,275 weekly flights across all airlines. There are 22,201 flights in operation in the last seven days or 91 per cent of sanctioned flights.

Detailed data for August shows that Air India, Akasa Air and IndiGo are operating most of their sanctioned flights, while some airlines like SpiceJet are operating less than 50 per cent of their sanctioned flights.

How are airlines growing and shrinking?

India’s largest carrier, IndiGo, which started this year with a new set of groundings, will see a marginal increase of 4.36 per cent compared to last winter. The airline has recently been focusing on international growth and has announced the launch of seven new international destinations, two of which have been unveiled.

Vistara will merge with Air India in mid-season, and the combined Air India Express will have more flights than before. Akasa Air has been growing at 25 percent last winter, but sequentially, the growth is only 9.5 percent, mainly due to limited available capacity. The airline has inducted only one aircraft this financial year, and induction may be further delayed due to the Boeing strike.

SpiceJet, which has seen a recent fund infusion, has retreated from its previous schedule, although it remains more realistic with 1,297 weekly flights approved now. For August, the airline operated an average of only 616 weekly flights against the sanctioned 1,657. The airline had received approval for 4,209 weekly departures for summer 2020, a schedule that did not begin due to the pandemic, showing how much the airline has shrunk post-COVID.

Regional people are holding on

Regional carriers, led by Star Air, are gradually increasing their presence in the country. He has also significantly increased his usage and shown better performance in slot following. Star Air, IndiaOne and FLY91 plan to add flights, while Flybig has shrunk, operating only 26.5 per cent of its sanctioned schedule in August, and the revised schedule is more realistic.

Merger with 30% market share?

As part of Air India’s Vihaan.AI initiative, the group mentioned its intention to have 30 percent market share over a period of five years. The airline group has come very close to that number, with four airlines having more than 29 percent market share in September. Since the merger of AirAsia India with Air India Express has been completed and Vistara has merged with Air India on November 12, will this merger bring good news in November itself?

Purely on the numbers, Tata group airlines flew 30.43 per cent of all departures this winter. With the better rates of flight deployment by these airlines compared to some other airlines and a certainty that the schedule will not be at its peak in the first month of operations, along with the higher load factors that Air India and Vistara are seeing, all Indicators point to 30 per cent market share for the two Tata group airlines at the end of November.

tail note

In the current season, SpiceJet and Air India Express have made poor utilization of their sanctioned flights, with all the rest operating either more or almost the same number of flights as per their sanctioned schedule. When such issues are faced at metro airports, capacity constraints occur, and at non-metro or smaller airports, they can lead to loss of connectivity.

IndiGo is the winner by a margin, and with other airlines not being able to keep up, the benefits the airline will continue to enjoy is huge. However, last winter Indigo was in the news for the wrong reasons. A big operation comes with its challenges. How will this winter be for Indigo? For Tata Group, this is still the integration stage, but IndiGo cannot hide behind it this winter.