Edition 34
The last week saw Akasa Air launch flights to the newly launched airport at Ayodhya. Akasa Air follows IndiGo, Air India Express, SpiceJet and Zooom Air to become the fifth operator at Ayodhya. Devotees have been making a beeline to Ayodhya since the inauguration by the Hon. Prime Minister on January 22 this year. Lack of star hotels, or extreme rush to visit the temple and seek blessings has not slowed down the rush. In fact, more and more seats have been added to Ayodhya over the last few weeks.
Similar time to when the Maharishi Valmiki International Airport, Ayodhya Dham airport at Ayodhya opened, but a year ago – the Manohar International Airport opened at Mopa, North Goa. The influx of tourists and flights was even higher at the new airport. While Ayodhya is a temple town with the newly built and opened temple the largest attraction, Goa has been on the radar for everyone for years.
A look at the data for the last calendar year shows religious and tourist places seeing a very high growth in passenger numbers as compared to other routes. While tourism routes have seen highs and lows, the religious traffic has been doing well for quite a while now. Does that open up an opportunity for a player to focus on some key destinations. The likes of SpiceJet which has been struggling and Akasa Air – which is facing headwinds to gain market share could do well focusing on religious tourism.
The challenge of religious and party tourism is the swinging nature of traffic, with peak and off days instead of seasons. Compare that to the metro routes where traffic is consistently present, the party and religious traffic throws up challenges. But then how does one corner significant business traffic without a larger presence? Like all things aviation, the answer could lie in “optimum”. Will any airline take that bait or the new and upcoming airlines look at the numbers or continue chasing the usual routes?
This traffic pattern very much reminds me of the Varanasi to Bangkok flight of IndiGo which was dubbed Paap and Pryaschit by the Internet. The flight is no longer in operation, but flights to Varanasi and Bangkok are doing well from multiple points in the country.
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