Six by Six: A look at operations this February at six metros by six major airlines

IndiGo – India’s largest carrier by fleet and market share has been constrained by capacity, thanks to the Pratt & Whitney engine issues. As the airline tries to get over the crisis with the help of damp leases and short term leases of A320ceo, it is trying its best to guard its fort against the expanding Air India group.

Here is a look at the underlying frequency share in February from the Big 6 airlines (Indigo, Vistara, Air India, Air India Express, Spice Jet and Akasa Air) at the Big 6 metros (Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai). February is the last full month for operations under the winter schedule, as the industry will transition to Summer schedule on March 31, 2024.

The most ideal scenario would be to look at the capacity share to get a sense of market share but given that a single departure could vary from 72 seats for the ATR to over 300 for the B77W and airlines resorting to fair bit of swaps, the focus of this post is on frequency share.

Six by Six – Daily departures at six metros by six airlines

How are they stacked?

1.  Delhi (DEL) – India’s biggest airport and also the largest by way of frequencies. Indigo is the largest player here with a 46% share and the Air India group (including Vistara from here on for all analysis) is neck and neck at nearly 43% share of departures. There are relatively few small capacity aircraft (operated by 6E and SG) and a large share of departures are on high capacity aircraft including the A321neo. Air India also deploys its larger 777 fleet on 4 frequencies from Delhi. A quick comparison with last winter shows that the Air India group has added 18 daily frequencies between the 3 carriers while Indigo has added 33 daily frequencies, largely a consequence of the closure of Go Air operations which had 36 daily services in January 23 and the shrinking of Spice jet operations from 50 to 38. Akasa air has been able to raise its presence from 3 to 13 daily departures. The interesting dynamic to watch for going ahead is the increased capacity available basis media reports with all 4 runways and the enlarged Terminal 1 going live before summer.

2. Mumbai (BOM) – India’s second largest domestic hub with nearly 345 daily departures on domestic routes, Mumbai is also a keen contest between Indigo (47% share of departures) and the Air India group carriers (41% share of departures), with Akasa being a sizeable player in this market with 27 departures. While Vistara and Air India are large players in their own right and have grown their presence in this city, it remains a very small operation for Air India Express with only 13 daily departures. A comparison with last winter is also instructive as Go air had a sizable presence in Mumbai (41 daily departures in Jan 23). These slots and fresh slots created by the operator have been split between Indigo (from 125 to nearly 162 departures), Air India group (107 to 141 departures) and Akasa (13 to 27 departures). Mumbai appears to be largely saturated with possibly small changes in capacity from here on given the Runway capacity challenges. It will be interesting to see how the new Navi Mumbai airport (targeted to come on stream by March 2025) impacts operations at the current airport

3. Bengaluru (BLR) – India’s third biggest domestic hub with nearly 300 domestic departures, comfortably ahead by over 100 departures per day over Hyderabad, its closest competitor. Though Indigo has recently cut back departures at this airport, it remains the largest operator at 56% frequency share. Air India express is the second largest airline in this airport with 54 daily departures and the Air India group as a whole has 32% share of departures. Akasa is marginally ahead of Vistara at 3rd place with 26 daily departures. The interesting dynamic to watch will be when Bengaluru (with its 2 runways and higher capacity) overtakes the current single runway airport at Mumbai, given that less than 50 or so departures separate the two. However it must be noted that over 40 of those 291 departures out of Bengaluru are on far lower capacity ATR aircraft and hence the real difference is about 70 departures of capacity (A320 sized aircraft). Given that the Mumbai capacity restriction is real, it will be a matter of time (though possibly not in the next 3 years) before Bengaluru Kempegowda airport overtakes Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj airport in terms of domestic passenger numbers. However by then the Navi Mumbai airport would have also kicked in and will allow Mumbai as a city and catchment to continue to grow

4.  Hyderabad (HYD) – India’s fourth largest domestic operation, this airport along with Chennai and Kolkata are Indigo dominated airports with a 72% frequency share for Indigo. However this market is now seeing more intense competition from Air India express (though still small in absolute size) and possibly as a consequence, Indigo has cut frequencies the least from this airport. 36 of these 191 departures are on turboprop aircraft like ATR or the Q400. 74 of these 192 total departures (close to 39%) are to other South India cities – a higher ratio than that for say Bengaluru (32%) but lower than Chennai at 46%. It will be interesting to see how the expansion of the Air India express network plays out and helps boost the overall corporate Air India group share here (currently low at 21% share of departures) and how Indigo responds to this. Hyderabad also has lower connectivity (number of destinations and frequency) compared to Bangalore particularly to the rest of the country though geographically its the best situated of all the 6 airports and it will be interesting to see how this gap with Bangalore closes.

5.  Kolkata (CCU) – the gateway to the north east, Kolkata has been challenged with little incremental growth over the last several years. Total departures stand at 151 with Indigo the dominant player with 68% share of departures. North east destinations (including Bagdogra) make up 25% of departures from Kolkata and for this traffic, Kolkata now competes with Delhi for a slice of the north east connectivity particularly beyond Guwahati as Indigo has started flying directly from Delhi to smaller North East markets like Imphal, Itanagar, Dimapur, Agartala, Aizawl and Dibrugarh. Air India is the second largest player in this city with a decent portfolio of north east departures adding heft here though recently some destinations have been transferred to Air India express

6.  Chennai (MAA) – a high intra-south network (46% share of departures) with a growing ATR footprint of Indigo defines this key city market. Indigo is again the dominant player with 73% share of departures and frequency leadership on every sector here with a very large footprint of monopoly routes. There are less than  7 daily departures that separate Chennai and Kolkata and some significant additions in either by Air India express or Akasa (which is small in both) could tilt the scales. Chennai is weakly connected beyond the south cities – is that because of inherent market demand or something else needs to be seen.

Summer 2024 could be slightly different from these, especially beyond Delhi and Mumbai but the major changes could come up by next winter by when Air India group would have inducted a sizable number of planes.

About the author : This guest contributor is an aviation enthusiast whose day job is in consumer goods. A frequent flyer (1300 + flights logged) and a data geek with a love for analysing airline networks and their evolution. On X (Formerly Twitter) and other platforms as @BOMLHR

Note: Airlines schedules are dynamic and impacted by various factors – which are within and outside the control of the airline. Neither the author nor the website take responsibility for updating the schedule as and when it changes. The analysis is based on the schedule in the public domain at the time of writing the post. 

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