Akasa Air – the Mumbai headquartered low cost carrier is launching flights to Gorakhpur starting May 29, 2024. The airline will connect Gorakhpur daily to Bengaluru and Delhi with below timings.
QP1880 BLR1115 – 1405GOP
QP1883 GOP1920 – 2155BLR
QP1882 DEL1655 – 1845GOP
QP1881 GOP1445 – 1600DEL
This will be the fifth destination in the state of Uttar Pradesh for the airline, where it already operates to Lucknow, Varanasi, Ayodhya and Prayagraj – where it is launching flights on May 25. The airline has put a lot of focus on Uttar Pradesh.
As per the approved domestic schedule released by the regulator, the airline has approvals for flights from Delhi and Mumbai. The airline has instead decided to operate from Delhi and Bengaluru. The airline had publicly stated that it wanted to be number two at Bengaluru, since then it faced multiple troubles and at the same time got slots in Mumbai. As of March, the airline is number four in Bengaluru with Vistara surpassing Akasa Air and AIX Connect (erstwhile Air Asia India) continuing to hold number two position.
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Why Gorakhpur?
Gorakhpur is a holy city located in Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh. It has easy access to land border crossing with Nepal. The name “Gorakhpur” comes from the Sanskrit Gorakshapuram, which means abode of Gorakhnath, a renowned ascetic who was a prominent saint of the Nath Sampradaya. Gorakhpur Urban constituency is represented by chief minister Yogi Adityanath.
Gorakhpur airport is an Indian Air Force base with a civil enclave managed by Airports Authority of India. The lack of space to expand has meant that there have been limited movements. The operational air base also puts restrictions on the ability of civilian flights to expand.
Competition
IndiGo is the only serious competitor at Gorakhpur with flights from Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Mumbai. IndiGo operates twice daily from Delhi, daily from Hyderabad, Mumbai and Kolkata. Alliance Air has limited operations with just four flights a week listed between Delhi and Gorakhpur.
Delhi – Gorakhpur is the largest market, followed by Mumbai. By launching flights from Bengaluru, the airline is launching a currently unserved route. SpiceJet vacated the Gorakhpur market in early 2024, where it operated from Delhi and Mumbai. IndiGo launched flights to Gorakhpur in September 2018.
If things go well, Akasa Air could strengthen the station from one or more of its existing destinations in near future.
Network Thoughts
A look at the Akasa Air network shows a trend of flights to Tier II cities from Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai or a combination of these two. While it went ahead with the metro to metro connectivity, it scaled back – possibly due to lack of a larger presence needed to latch on to corporate deals and traffic. The Tier II market is driven by fares and flight timings as one does not have the luxury of multiple carriers across multiple time bands. In the case of both Prayagraj and Gorakhpur. IndiGo and Alliance Air were the only players. Akasa Air is going for a head-on contest against a near monopoly market leader. Its earlier additions were towards pushing AIX Connect or another weaker market, which have possibly not worked out since it has vacated a large portion of its initial network. This includes Mumbai – Chennai, Bengaluru – Kochi and pulling out of Vizag completely within days of launching. Will this strategy work?
The airline is yet to get back to its August 2023 levels when it was hit by a spate of cancellations. After a rapid expansion, this seems to be a phase of consolidation – another year and we would know what path the airline is headed towards.
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