In 2019, in the backdrop of the collapse of Jet Airways, Vistara (UK) inducted the first of a fleet of 10 all economy aircraft – the first one was not factory fresh and had served with Wow air previously. Subsequent aircraft (all leased) came from Airbus directly. These 10 aircraft (VT-TNL,TNM,TNN, VT-TYA-TYG) offer an insight into the thinking of Vistara planners and the challenges they have faced.
Since these are all economy aircraft, Vistara doesn’t offer either a business class or its USP premium economy class on the sectors where it’s deployed. This poses a challenge of finding the right sectors where there is sufficient volume for a full service product but low premium demand. While Jet airways experimented with an LCC product on several routes this led to glaring inconsistencies which troubled the high yielding corporate customer. Vistara does provide a complimentary meal wherever it flies these aircraft but depends on high loads to compensate for lack of premium seats. Barring a few routes, Vistara flies these aircraft on relatively shorter sectors with an average flying time of 109 minutes per sector (All data is for early March 2024 basis published schedules as of early February).
Initially these aircraft were focused in the north on short sectors and on routes to North East India and Jammu & Kashmir (Cat 2 and Cat 2A routes as per RDG guidelines) which in turn allowed more premium capacity to be deployed on the premium routes out of Delhi and Mumbai. This continues with consistency till date. Subsequently with more additions to this sub-fleet, Vistara started placing aircraft in Bangalore and after the exit of the Mumbai based 737 fleet, some of these aircraft have been placed in Mumbai as well. But the non Delhi network has seen frequent chopping and changing with several sectors discontinued (e.g. Bangalore to Pune and Bangalore to Coimbatore) and then the short term taking out six of these aircraft to meet Haj charter requirements in June/July last year. However, since November last year, there has been more consistent deployment of these aircraft. Currently 4 aircraft are based in Delhi, a 5th does a predominantly Delhi based rotation but is parked at Chandigarh at night, 2 aircraft are based in Mumbai and 3 are based in Bangalore.
A sample rotation schedule for the aircraft is as below
- 1. DEL IDR DEL SXR IXJ SXR DEL IXC
- 2. DEL RPR DEL IXR DEL ATQ DEL
- 3. DEL TRV DEL COK DEL
- 4. DEL IXB DIB IXB DEL IDR DEL
- 5. IXC DEL SXR DEL DED DEL RPR DEL
- 6. BOM GOX DEL GOX BOM BBI BOM
- 7. BOM COK BOM COK BOM GOX BOM
- 8. BLR HYD BLR GAU BLR HYD BLR GOI BLR
- 9. BLR GOI BLR IXZ BLR BOM BLR
- 10. BLR IXC BLR HYD GOX HYD BLR
This sub-fleet does 430 weekly flights with a total block time of 47260 minutes. In turn that indicates a daily utilisation of 675 minutes – or 11 hours and 15 minutes every day.. In addition, there is the occasional Bangalore Delhi Bangalore flight (the Bangalore Guwahati flight is scheduled only 5 days of the week) that allows for an aircraft swap between the Delhi and Bangalore bases. Aircraft to Mumbai are rotated through the Goa Manohar rotation (No 6 in this list).
Keep in mind that these Aircraft do not perform overnight international or red eye operations and hence will have by design a lower utilisation than other aircraft in the fleet but at over 11 hours is a solid utilisation in itself.
It will be interesting to see the evolution of this sub fleet in the summer schedule as some routes like Hyderabad to.Goa Manohar may see seasonality. Further Vistara has opted to also deploy premium capacity to Srinagar in previous summer peak seasons and likewise to Bagdogra. While much of the released for sale schedule for summer shows continuity, one or more routes could see changes. In December Vistara took delivery of three, three-class aircraft (VT -TQ* series) and per press reports, by April, Vistara would have taken delivery of two more which could take over some of these mono class routes, in turn freeing up some capacity on these mono class aircraft. Vistara has chosen to deploy the 3 class aircraft for its forthcoming Bengaluru Kolkata route launch indicating it expects to get a premium demand on this sector. Could Vistara expand more with these single class aircraft on intra-south metro routes like Bangalore to Hyderabad where they are deployed three times a day each way or expand services from cities like Ahmedabad and Chandigarh to Goa Manohar for which Vistara had approvals in the DGCA approved winter schedule? We will know soon
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
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