The Mumbai – Pune flight is back!

As VT-SCR took off to operate the inaugural flight between Mumbai and Pune, the route saw connectivity return for the first time since early 2019. Air India will deploy an Airbus A319 on the sector, the smallest aircraft in its fleet and operate as per the below timings six days a week (all days except Saturday)

AI613 BOM 09:45-10:45 PNQ

AI614 PNQ 11:20-12:20 BOM

History

Old timers recollect that the Mumbai Pune was the first flight when airline operations started at Pune. 

Since the time I remember and tracked flights and rotations, at its peak there were three daily flights between the two cities, all operated by Jet Airways. The airline operated Kolkata -> Mumbai -> Pune -> Mumbai in the morning and Mumbai -> Pune -> Mumbai -> Kolkata in the evening. The third flight, which operated for a few weeks, was an ATR 72 flight which operated Mumbai -> Pune -> Goa -> Bengaluru, while another aircraft crisscrossed in reverse.

For a short period, Kingfisher Airlines also operated an early morning Pune – Mumbai and late night Mumbai – Pune flight.

A lot changed since then, with Jet Airways deciding to use the valuable slot in Pune for operations to Indore / Hyderabad / Ahmedabad / Delhi instead of a morning Pune -> Mumbai and evening Mumbai -> Pune, helping release one pair of slots at both Mumbai and Pune for other ops.

Jet Airways was under pressure from IndiGo which offered a morning Pune Kolkata via Chennai and return in the evening the same way. In 2014, IndiGo upped the ante and flew nonstop to Kolkata from Pune. Jet Airways continued with the Mumbai – Pune flight almost till the end of its operations in 2019. 

Connectivity

The demand for the flight was to have an early morning Pune – Mumbai and late evening Mumbai – Pune flight or to have it such that it connects passengers to the late night bank of international departures.

Air India’s morning / mid-day flight does not take care of that demand but takes care of the airline’s own connectivity. The flight will connect to Mumbai – San Francisco, which departs at 1430 hours. The flight arrives from San Francisco at 0310 hours and would have a six hour wait to take the flight to Pune. The Pune – Mumbai flight will also connect to London (1405 departure), but has a long connection on the way back. 

However, the flight is not timed to connect to either New York or Newark. A look at the Air India network from Mumbai also shows that there is little two way connectivity on offer. 

Network Thoughts

How Air India is looking at this flight and how Jet Airways looked at it seems drastically different. Jet Airways had priced the flight above INR 7000 for the Mumbai – Pune – Mumbai sector and one would board the flight at much cheaper rates if you are going onwards to Kolkata or anywhere else on the Jet Airways network. 

Air India on the other hand has priced this flight cheap, at least for now. A look at Mumbai – San Francisco and Pune – San Francisco, return fares for the same dates showed that Pune – SFO was priced anywhere between seven to ten thousands more than Mumbai – SFO. When looking at the fares for these very dates, the Mumbai – Pune – Mumbai flight was selling at less than INR 3,500 on all occasions. Revenue Management is a complex science and art and each airline looks at it differently. 

Next winter, when the airport closure at Pune shifts to 0900 to 1130 hours, the flight will have to be re-timed ensuring that it misses out the connection to SFO, unless the SFO flight is delayed! At current strategy and timings, Air India would not have this fight as a cakewalk. 

Lastly, the European flights from Mumbai should be expected soon and if those mirror the timings from Delhi, the Pune flight will see a lot of connections to connect to the European bank, giving a leg up to this sector.

Tail note

My first article in the newspaper was about this topic in 2007 in a local daily, where I wrote about how airlines could operate Mumbai – Pune – Mumbai. I was out of the Indian Air Force after a brief stint and awaiting my MBA entrance results when I went to participate in air connectivity. I was to be part of the audience and my discussion with the hosts before the session propelled me to the discussion panel and ended up writing about it.

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