Indian carriers and their Arabian odyssey – Part 1

With the recent launch of Akasa’s international services (from Mumbai to Doha) and the continued expansion of Air India Express which is slowly taking over a fair chunk of Air India’s Middle East network, it is an opportune moment to look at where India’s carriers are flying from and to. Unlike the Middle East carriers which are restricted by port of call restrictions that dictate where they can fly to in India, Indian carriers, within their allocated rights, can fly from any point in India to the appropriate destination in the Middle East. Also, Middle East carriers carry extensive traffic beyond their home countries to points in Europe, Africa and North America. In contrast, Indian carriers predominantly serve the large Origin-Destination traffic on these routes. Hence it is instructive to see the points of origin and destination in the Middle East to understand better the dynamics of this market.

Origin from India (Daily departures)

Sr. No	City	Indigo	Tata Group	SpiceJet/Akasa	Total
1	Mumbai	14.5	17	3.5	35
2	Delhi	9	10.5	2	21.5
3	Kozhikode	3	12	2	17
4	Kochi	5	9.5	1	15.5
5	Hyderabad	11.5	3.5		15
6	Kannur	2	8		10
7	Trivandrum	1	6		7
8	Chennai	4	2		6
9	Lucknow	3	2.5		5.5
10	Ahmedabad	4	0	1	5
11	Mangalore	0.5	4		4.5
12	Amritsar	1	2	1	4
13	Trichy		2.5		2.5
14	Bengaluru	2			2
15	Other cities	2	4.5	1.5	8
	Total	62.5	84	12	158.5

1. Indigo is the single largest carrier with almost 63 daily flights while Air India express comes in at second place with 58 daily flights. Air India group, courtesy of this strong portfolio of Air India express flights is the largest group and since the Air India group deploys wide bodies to Dubai, they are by far the largest player by way of seats to the Middle East region. Air India express over the last few months has picked up routes from Air India as varied as Hyderabad to Jeddah and Riyadh, Chennai to Kuwait, Mumbai to Abu Dhabi and Muscat and Delhi to Bahrain. Air India as such has fully exited the Bahrain and Abu Dhabi markets, with a small presence left in Muscat and Dammam, served from Delhi. Air India as the full service carrier appears to be focused on the relatively higher yield markets in the Middle East like Dubai & Doha, allowing Air India express to better serve volume driven ethnic markets with the right fare and cost structure.

2. As the table above reveals, while there is a scattered market from India to the Middle East, there is one clear hub for that traffic which is Mumbai, which despite its runway constraints still is the leader for India Middle East connectivity, with both greater proximity and historical links driving this growth. Even for Middle East carriers, Mumbai (with a few exceptions) remains their largest market by way of seats and frequency. It is indeed striking that despite having no point of call restrictions, Indian carriers continue to add capacity from Mumbai to the Middle East – Akasa and Indigo’s expansion to Doha being the most recent examples. From Mumbai, while the Air India group leads, Air India, Vistara and now Air India express all have decent sized operations to the gulf market from here.

3. Delhi is a distant number 2 in this market despite its much larger domestic and international market. Air India and Indigo are level at 9 departures each while Air India express has 1.5 daily departures, having recently picked up Air India’s Bahrain service. There has been no net expansion of Middle East services from Delhi post covid.

4. Kozhikode is the 3^rd largest point of origin for Indian carriers to the Middle East with the Malabar region of Kerala being a large sourcing market for Middle East travel. Kochi which also serves this market is at 4^th place with over 15 daily departures. Air India express dominates the Kozhikode market with 12 daily departures while Kochi is more evenly split between Indigo and Air India express but it is Air India’s 2 daily departures to Dubai and Doha that split the odds in favour of the Air India group. Kozhikode also has a wider breadth of destinations with services to every one of the 13 international airports in the Middle East served from here

5. Hyderabad is at 5^th place is narrowly behind Kochi with a large and growing Middle East departures from Indigo. Air India express is also slowly building up its departure profiles from here with service to Saudi Arabia. It will be interesting to see the future evolution of the Air India express network at Hyderabad and whether they indeed do build a Middle East to India connectivity point via Hyderabad which is (outside of Delhi and Mumbai) the only city with a large organic traffic to the growth and good connectivity being a large metro.

6. Kannur where Go Air had a big presence is an airport that has seen a lot of step up in departures this summer, with stepped up deployment particularly from Air India express and is now ahead of Trivandrum. International carriers cannot fly to Kannur unlike the other 3 airports in Kerala, bestowing an advantage to Indian carriers flights from there

7. After Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai, Lucknow and Ahmedabad make it to the top 10 with close to 6 and 5 daily departures each to the gulf. Interestingly the Air India group has no presence in the Ahmedabad-Middle east market.

8. Bengaluru has surprisingly poor connectivity to the Middle East from Indian carriers with only 2 departures thus far by Indigo to Doha and Dubai. The summer schedule approved by the DGCA also lists an Air India departure from Bangalore to Dubai (4 weekly on a A319 aircraft starting early May)

9. Indigo, Air India express and Spicejet also fly to the Dubai/Sharjah duopoly from a wider portfolio of cities ranging from Pune, Madurai, Bhubaneswar, Surat, Indore, Chandigarh, Vijayawada and Jaipur, often with daily or lower than daily frequencies

In part 2 of this blog, we will look at the destinations served in the Middle East by the various Indian carriers

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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