In July 2020, right in the middle of COVID, Vistara started taking delivery of the A321neos. The fleet has since grown to 10 aircraft and are equipped with 12 lie flat business class seats, inflight entertainment through personal TVs and few other features that set them apart from the rest of the fleet. While the 321neos are higher capacity aircraft, Vistara has taken 4 of these aircraft in the “LR” configuration that increases endurance and flying distance to beyond 6 hours per flight with one sector (Delhi to Denpasar Bali) clocking in at over 8 hours one way.
Initially, these aircraft were deployed largely on domestic runs and select international routes under the bubble arrangement that persisted till March of 2022. Since then, Vistara has progressively stepped up their deployment on international short haul operations and also using the downtime in between such rotations to fly key high volume metro routes like Delhi to Bangalore, Delhi to Hyderabad and Delhi to Mumbai. Five of these aircraft are based at Mumbai, while four are at Delhi. There is one aircraft which is utilized for almost 24 hours but starts the first flight post midnight from Pune.
A sample of the utilization rotations of this fleet for February is as below
- BOM DEL GOI DEL AMD DEL
- DEL HKG DEL HYD DEL BOM
- DEL SIN DEL BLR DEL
- BOM DEL BKK DEL BOM DEL
- BOM SIN BOM DXB BOM
- PNQ SIN PNQ DEL PNQ
- BOM MRU BOM DEL BOM
- BOM BKK BOM DOH BOM
- DEL DPS DEL
- DEL BOM SIN BOM (starts 1st February)
High Utilization for A321neo
- The fleet is evenly split between Mumbai and Delhi with swaps happening through the Delhi – Mumbai flights.
- The fleet does a total of 264 flights a week at an average block time of 237 minutes (Just under 4 hours per sector).
- Average utilization is a whopping 895 minutes per day – or over 14 hours and 55 minutes of flying daily which is high.
- Out of 264 flights, 124 are domestic and the rest are international routes.
- The LR designated aircraft (VT – TVG, H, I and J) fly 3 dedicated routes to Mauritius, Bali and Hong Kong (where the outbound is 5 hours 30 minutes from Delhi but the return from Hong Kong clocks in at 6 hours 45 minutes).
- Currently, the fourth aircraft flies a rotation that doesn’t need the capabilities of an LR.
This fleet is the regional workhorse of the Vistara network, with high utilization.
What next?
In the future, it will be interesting to see the future evolution of this network. Vistara could possibly open up another long international route (e.g. Mumbai to Hong Kong, Mumbai to Denpasar Bali or Delhi to Mauritius) with the fourth LR in the fleet by moving one 321 away from its current domestic flying. Air India group has also ordered as many as 140 of these aircraft – which will grow this fleet to over 150 aircraft and it will be interesting to see their deployment unfold as they enter the fleet. It also remains to be seen how many of these 150 will be the standard neo, the LRs or the XLRs. With a large Indigo fleet and order of similar planes, it is clear that the 321neo aircraft will be the bedrock of Indian aviation much as the 320 and 737 aircraft have been in the past.
With the block times ranging from two to three hours in domestic, the lie flat business class seats have little scope for commanding premium. Will the summer schedule see the airline shift these to more international routes where it can charge a premium? When will the close co-operation between Vistara and Air India start? At the moment there are more questions than answers. These ten aircraft will remain the prized posession even in the merged fleet, as they are the most luxurious narrowbody planes in the entire Air India group as of now.
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 analyzing airline networks and their evolution. On X (Formerly Twitter) and other platforms as @BOMLHR
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