IndiGo – the country’s largest carrier by fleet and domestic market share is opening two new domestic destinations this winter. Salem and Diu will take the domestic destination count for IndiGo to 83. This will take the total stations served by IndiGo to 115, comprising 83 domestic and 32 international.
The airline will launch flights to Salem from Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
6E7678 MAA1120 – 1230SXV
6E7679 SXV1250 – 1345MAA
The Chennai – Salem route will operate daily effective Oct 29, 2023.
6E7917 BLR0920 – 1020SXV
6E7918 SXV1545 – 1635BLR
6E7919 HYD1325 – 1525SXV
6E7923 SXV1040 – 1220HYD
The flights to Salem from Bengaluru and Hyderabad will operate on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and begin operations from Oct 30, 2023.
Diu will be connected with Ahmedabad and Surat.
6E7968 STV1550 – 1640DIU x3
6E7968 STV1340 – 1435DIU 3
6E7967 DIU1430 – 1530STV x3
6E7967 DIU1145 – 1240STV 3
6E7967 AMD1255 – 1410DIU x3
6E7967 AMD0950 – 1115DIU 3
6E7968 DIU1700 – 1815AMD x3
6E7968 DIU1455 – 1615AMD 3
All the flights will see the ATR 72-600 being deployed..
The timings differ on Wednesday due to the scheduled maintenance closure of Ahmedabad airport.
Diu airport (IATA: DIU) was built by the portuguese. In the recent past, Jet Airways operated to Diu, which it then clubbed with Porbandar before vacating the ATR out of Mumbai and stopping the flights. Diu came into prominence again with RCS – UDAN and currently Alliance Air operates flights to Diu from Mumbai.
Salem Airport (IATA: SXV) came up in the early 1990s and has seen operations on and off until it got operationalized again as part of RCS-UDAN with the route from Chennai being awarded to TruJet. It was one of the successful routes for TruJet with the airline also announcing additional flights which would not have subsidy.
IndiGo will see competition from Alliance Air on Bengaluru – Salem route, as Alliance Air will operate its allocated Bengaluru – Salem – Kochi and vice versa starting about a fortnight before IndiGo.
Diu
The town is one of the least populated towns in the country and part of the Union territory of Dadra Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu. It is a fishing village with some important historic places to see. Diu was liberated from the Portuguese in 1961 and integrated with India. Diu airport is picturesque with the runway and terminal right next to the beach. The airport serves as a gateway to Sasan Gir – known for the Asiatic lion.
Diu is eight hours by road from Ahmedabad, while Surat is nearly twelve hours due to the Gulf of Khambhat in between.
Salem
The city is the fifth largest urban conglomeration in Tamil Nadu and is a major textile centre. The region is also home to steel industries and the neighboring regions are rich in minerals.
State capital Chennai is over seven hours by road, while Bengaluru is closer with less than four hours of travel. Hyderabad is over 13 hours away.
Network Thoughts
Diu is an interesting choice for IndiGo. In terms of population, it is one of the most sparsely populated places in India and is not on the tourist map like some of the other destinations it operates to. Had it not been for RCS-UDAN, the airline may not have started operations to Diu.
Salem is a worthy addition to IndiGo’s network. The route between Chennai and Salem has shown strong potential in the past and capacity was being added outside RCS-UDAN. Salem lies within 300 kms of Bengaluru airport and within 200 kms of Coimbatore Airport and Tiruchirappalli airport while a little over 350 kms from Chennai. With flights from Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai – more options would be available for passengers to and from Salem since the multiple metro flights from these three destinations will help connect passengers seamlessly with lesser connection times.
With Ahmedabad coming up as a hub and focus city for IndiGo, and flights to Salem from Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai – the flights will help IndiGo add more passengers on its wide network.
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I always believe that any airline when announces new flight destinations , just like it has announced Amdavad – Diu – Surat , there are definitely chances of this operations running into the bad whether in future.
I can justify my above statement.
When I joined Jet Airways in 1999, it was for the first time in Indian Civil Aviation history , that ATR aircrafts were been introduced to operate on regional or so called feeder routes,
15th October 1999 , Jet Airways began ATR operations with schedule like Bombay – Keshod – Porbandar – Bombay.
Just within few months , Keshod was permanently cancelled due to in-sufficient load factor and remember it was ATR -52-500 aircraft with merely 52 seats , however , Porbandar , where I was posted , gave handsome business to Jet.
So the moral of the story is when Indigo will commence above new operations , chances are that it may not get desired load factor the reason being flight timings and mismatch among said three sectors.
Within last two decades after resigning from Jet Airways, I am doing research and analysis on Airlines and my focus areas are flight timings, new routes expansions, etc and to my best knowledge and data base , following could have been the best alternate to above :
[1] an early morning direct flight from Surat – Diu – Surat
[2] same as for Amdavad – Diu -Amdavad flight
We Gujaratis love travelling to Goa due to number of reasons , but now when Diu is also picking up as far as tourism is concerned , direct flights from Mumbai, Rajkot , and rest of the cities of Gujarat can give handsome return to airlines and that too when Diu is now shortlisted under RCS.
By : rajuthaker14@gmail.com