Air India launched flights to Phuket on December 01, 2023. While analyzing the route, I wrote “The timings may not be optimum just yet for a two way connection to its entire European bank, but come next year – additional flights to Phuket or additional flights to Europe will help overcome this challenge. “ The airline today announced the addition of 6x weekly flights between Delhi and Phuket to take the route offerings to 13x weekly. The new flights will be effective June 01, 2024. This makes Air India the capacity and frequency leader on the route, where it sees direct competition with IndiGo.
The new flights will operate at below timings
AI376 DEL1100 – 1715 HKT
AI377 HKT1815 – 2120 DEL
This addition will mean the flight options on Air India to Phuket from Delhi will be as below
- AI376 DEL1100 – 1715 HKT
- AI378 DEL0110 – 0710HKT
- AI377 HKT1815 – 2120 DEL
- AI379 HKT0810 – 1050DEL
With this change, the airline which currently serves Phuket with the dual class A320neo is making changes to the equipment and both flights will see the A319 serving the route.
Phuket is a major tourist attraction and the third busiest airport in Thailand, with the first two serving Bangkok.
A case study of connectivity
Air India’s European bank arrives in Delhi in the morning hours between 0700 – 0945 hrs. This gives the airline enough time to connect to AI376, the new flight to Phuket. The airline also has an afternoon bank to Europe – out of Delhi to which the older flight connected well. The long Europe to Phuket connection is now perfect and competing with the offerings in total time with the other carriers.
The airline has added a few flights from Delhi (Delhi – Chandigarh – Delhi) which connect well to the late night flight to Phuket.
Capacity management
While the connectivity part was straightforward, the capacity management is making the best use of different gauges which is available. The current operations see 12 Business and 150 economy class seats, a total of 162. By shifting both the flights to the A319, each flight has 8 Business and 114 economy class seats. While the frequency is doubled, the capacity has gone up 33% in Business class and 40% in Economy. A sudden spike in capacity becomes hard to fill up leading to discounting, which is now avoided by deploying the A319.
The A319s, some of which have seen on road after being decommissioned, could stay longer. The A319s have their own challenges and benefits. On the challenge side, they would be costlier to operate as they are the older generation aircraft, but they could well have outlived their financial stress on the books as they are over 10-12 years old, meaning the airline could well be looking at just milking them at the operating level of profitability.
When the flights stabilize, the airline will look at deploying the A320neo on one of the flights, followed by both the flights over a period of time.
Network Thoughts
The revised offering, at best will see having the flights 14x weekly but from a network perspective – it’s a job well done! The route is now the skill of revenue managers and sales teams to ensure the right passengers are tapped and attractive pricing helps funnel the passengers via Delhi on Air India.
Phuket is a popular destination and amongst the top 10 source markets for Thailand are Germany, UK and the USA. There are no direct flights to Phuket from these three countries, barring seasonal charters from the UK. Air India has firmly entered the game.
In future, when this route matures, what the airline would look at is a flight from Mumbai and Bengaluru – its other two hubs from where it can further offer connections. A multi hub strategy on the lines of Lufthansa – which often prices connections via Frankfurt and Munich differently based on demand helps build two (or more) hubs simultaneously. For Air India, it has a huge head start with Delhi already.
Personally, I am a big fan of having a sub-fleet for a full service carrier. No two routes are the same and the kind of flexibility which a sub-fleet gives is unmatched. It is great to see Air India make use of the A319. Does it make a case for a smaller aircraft for the airline in future?
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