Indian aviation is certainly booming, recording strong growth year on year and a sharp bounce back post the covid years. The government has invested in opening airports (the most recent being Ayodhya) and through UDAN has aimed to democratise flying. Further, as GDP of India grows, it is likely that more flyers will take to the skies across a broader breadth of origin points and catchments.
To take a look at evolution of the beyond metro markets, this post looks at how the terrain of the Indian domestic market shapes up beyond the top six metro airports we profiled recently. For the purpose of this post, we continue to look at the network of the top six scheduled carriers (Indigo, Air India, Vistara, Air India express, Akasa air and Spicejet) for a sample date in mid March 2024, just prior to the start of the summer season schedule.
The next 12 markets in descending order of daily departures are :
| Market | Daily Departures | Indigo departures | Indigo % |
| Goa (Mopa+Dabolim) | 98.5 | 52.5 | 53% |
| Ahmedabad | 98.5 | 67.5 | 69% |
| Pune | 87.5 | 52.5 | 60% |
| Jaipur | 58 | 40 | 69% |
| Lucknow | 53 | 38.5 | 73% |
| Guwahati | 51 | 24.5 | 48% |
| Kochi | 46 | 25 | 54% |
| Indore | 42 | 38 | 90% |
| Bhubaneswar | 40.5 | 24.5 | 60% |
| Srinagar | 35 | 15 | 43% |
| Patna | 34 | 24.5 | 72% |
| Chandigarh | 33 | 26 | 79% |
All analysis for the fourth week of March (22nd March as median date) for the top 6 scheduled airlines on domestic routes only
Insights
- The first surprise is that the combined Goa market (Mopa + Dabolim airport) and the Ahmedabad market are equal in size, and both are close to 100 departures per day. Along with Pune which is a heavily constrained airport, this western trio takes up the 7th to 9th position in Indian skies and are clearly ahead of the rest of the airports in terms of departures. Both Goa Dabolim and Goa Mopa make this list of next 12 airports on their own steam as well and clearly the Goa Manohar airport at Mopa has increased the connectivity of Goa as a destination.
- The next 5 airports have heavy representation from central India with Jaipur, Lucknow and Indore represented. Indigo has a strong presence in all 3 with bases for their ATR fleet boosting departures from these airports. Guwahati is the nodal hub for the north east and connected to a wide breadth of destinations within the north east which airlines need to fly to meet their Route dispersal guideline obligations and most airlines offer through flights to smaller destinations in the north east via Guwahati. Guwahati and Cochin are likely to have the highest passenger flows since a bulk of their departures are on 180+ seater Airbus A320/Boeing 737 family aircraft unlike the central India trio where ATR departures are large.
- Indore is the most concentrated big market in India with a 90% Indigo departure share and Indore and Goa are the best connected of these 12 markets with 22 destinations connected with non stop flights.
- Srinagar and Guwahati are relatively fragmented and comparable in terms of Indigo shares to Delhi or Mumbai with all six airlines flying to these two markets. This is likely a direct result of government policy requiring a certain capacity to be offered to these priority markets (*Route dispersal guidelines)
- Goa Dabolim, Bhubaneswar and Jaipur are notable for their double digit Air India express departures and likewise Vistara has a sizable presence and share in the Goa and Chandigarh markets.
- Most cities (Including Goa Mopa airport) in this list barring Srinagar, Patna and Goa Dabolim airport are also overnight parking and base departure cities for Indigo. Vistara also parks planes in Ahmedabad, Chandigarh & Jaipur
- Srinagar will almost certainly climb higher in this list in the summer season with more departures. However, a bulk of Srinagar’s connectivity is to one destination – Delhi which is a greater concentration than most of these markets. Its next busiest route is the intra state route of Srinagar to Jammu. Srinagar has the lowest connectivity of a total of 8 destinations covered by these airlines
- Vistara and Indigo fly to all 12 of these markets (all 13 airports). Air India does not serve Bhubaneswar and Air India express does not serve Ahmedabad, Goa Mopa and Patna airports
Looking ahead
Given that two of these destinations (Goa and Srinagar) are tourist heavy destinations with seasonality attached to it, it will be interesting to see how their off-season traffic balances and indeed whether they become all year round destinations like the others which appear to be on the cards. Similarly it will be fascinating to watch the growth of the central and East Indian destinations like Lucknow and Bhubaneswar to see how they develop as India’s GDP grows. And finally, of course, we will watch out for Varanasi, Ranchi, Bagdogra, Nagpur, Visakhapatnam, Coimbatore, Mangalore and Thiruvananthapuram to see which of them will break into this elite group of top 20 airports (All are between 20 and 30 departures per day). Currently, Varanasi is ahead of the other markets in this group, showing again the importance of the religious tourism market in India.
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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