As is clear to the observer, five of India’s large airports have clear capacity constraints – Delhi, Mumbai (which has seen government mandated cut backs in capacity), Kolkata, Chennai and Pune. The situation at other airports at peak hours is likely similar. This post looks at how the 2 main airline groups of Indigo and Air India (comprising Air India, Vistara and Air India express) have been overcoming these shortages by using higher capacity aircraft on domestic routes. Indigo, Vistara and Air India all have access to A321 aircraft which offer about 20-25% more capacity than their standard configuration 320 aircraft. Air India in addition, also deploys its 777 aircraft regularly on domestic routes out of Delhi to Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai.
Given the slot constraints, one would expect a higher than normal usage of high capacity aircraft at the slot constrained airports. The data for a sample date in May for the top 8 metro airports is pasted below
| Domestic only | Indigo total | Indigo 321 | Indigo % | AI group | AI 321 or higher | Tata % |
| DEL | 217 | 93 | 43% | 202 | 47 | 24% |
| BOM | 153 | 80 | 52% | 131 | 18 | 14% |
| BLR | 181 | 67 | 37% | 106 | 7 | 7% |
| HYD | 152 | 48 | 32% | 51 | 4 | 8% |
| CCU | 109 | 40 | 37% | 47 | 3 | 6% |
| MAA | 114 | 37 | 32% | 28 | 3 | 11% |
| AMD | 68 | 5 | 7% | 17 | 5 | 29% |
| PNQ | 53 | 6 | 11% | 20 | 5 | 25% |
| Total | 1047 | 376 | 36% | 602 | 92 | 15% |
As is to be expected, a high proportion of Indigo and Air India group departures at Delhi are on higher capacity aircraft. The same is true for Indigo for Mumbai, with Bengaluru and Kolkata also slightly above the metro average. However Pune is a surprise as it is known to be slot constrained – however very few departures (all to Delhi) are on high capacity aircraft. Intriguingly, while Air India has fewer departures out of Ahmedabad and Pune, a greater proportion of these flights are on higher capacity aircraft
In terms of sectors on which these aircraft are deployed, if one looks at the top 10 sectors by frequency in summer, inevitably, a large proportion of their flights are on higher capacity aircraft with Delhi to Mumbai leading the charts, showing the density of traffic on this high capacity high frequency sector. Indigo and Air India predominantly use these aircraft on inter metro sectors with peak time flights on these higher capacity aircraft.
| Sector | Daily flights | 321 or higher | % high capacity |
| Delhi Mumbai | 55 | 29 | 53% |
| Delhi Bengaluru | 38 | 17 | 45% |
| Mumbai Bengaluru | 35 | 14 | 40% |
| Delhi Hyderabad | 25 | 11 | 44% |
| Delhi Srinagar | 24 | 7 | 29% |
| Delhi Pune | 24 | 6 | 25% |
| Delhi Kolkata | 22 | 14 | 64% |
| Bengaluru Kolkata | 20 | 8 | 40% |
| Mumbai Hyderabad | 20 | 10 | 50% |
| Delhi Ahmedabad | 20 | 5 | 25% |
Delhi Kolkata and Mumbai Hyderabad are two other sectors that have a high share of A321 departures from both Indigo and the Air India group. Amongst the next 10 sectors, Mumbai and Delhi to Chennai has 11 out of 18 and 9 out of 19 departures on higher capacity aircraft respectively while Hyderabad to Chennai has 7 out of 12 departures on such aircraft. In the non metro sectors, while Delhi to Srinagar has 7 higher capacity departures, Delhi to Bhopal has 3 out of 5 departures on such aircraft.
Looking ahead, both Indigo and the Air India group have placed large orders for the 321 family and in Air India’s case for wide body aircraft as well. Similarly, both Akasa and Air India express have included the higher capacity 737 Max 10 in their order books. While one expects a broader deployment of these aircraft in the future going beyond the metros, the interesting dynamic will be the introduction of greenfield airports at Navi Mumbai and Jewar and eventually the new greenfield Pune and Chennai airports. One would then expect use of these higher capacity aircraft more opportunistically to maximise revenue at peak hours and possibly to increase revenue per departure in terms of more premium seats on offer. They will also play a role in the growing international aspirations of India’s airlines, both in terms of network feed and flying regionally to source traffic.
One thing to consider while understanding the deployment is that almost all of these routes are Category I routes as per Route Dispersal Guidelines and any addition of capacity on these routes has to be met with corresponding increase on Category II and IIA routes. The economic justification thus is not at the route level alone but the impact it has at a network level.
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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