Close on the heels of Virgin Atlantic announcing their second daily to Mumbai starting this winter, British Airways has followed suit and announced its third daily to Delhi which is slated to begin next summer from April 20, 2025. This will increase the airline’s schedule across India to 63 flights a week across five cities.
This comes on the back of new Bilateral Air Services which takes the quota of flights between London Heathrow and Mumbai, Delhi to 70 flights per week from 56 currently.
British Airways currently operates 56 flights a week, which includes thrice a day service to Mumbai, double daily from Delhi and daily flights to Bengaluru – where it now has competition from Virgin Atlatnic and monopoly routes to Chennai and Hyderabad. The new flight to Delhi will be operated by the 787-8 Dreamliner which will offer a three class service.
The new flight is planned to operate at below timings, subject to approvals
These timings will help passengers connect onwards to over 25 destinations in the US on British Airways. The departure from Delhi adds on the two other departures at 0135 hours and 1005 hours.
The new flight will still not propel British Airways’ position as the lead carrier on the Mumbai/Delhi to London Heathrow market, where as of today there are 53 non-stop flights from Delhi (18:Air India, 14: British Airways, 14: Virgin Atlantic,7: Vistara) and 35 from Mumbai (14: Air India, 14: British Airways, 7: Virgin Atlantic). This is because Air India will have 39 flights a week after Vistara’s merger, while British Airways and Virgin Atlantic will have 35 and 28 flights respectively after their increased frequencies.
The Indian side?
Even as the bilateral expands, Indian carriers are not utilising their full quota as of today with the Indian side operating 39 weekly flights as compared to 56 which are allowed in the bilaterals. The biggest reason for this is the lack of slots at London Heathrow. The airline – both in government times and in privatised times, asked for more slots in each and every reason and was denied slots. For British Airways, it may be a case of reducing frequency on some other route to cater to this new flight.
London sees both transit and terminating traffic and the battle will soon shift to loyalty with British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Air India being part of OneWorld, SkyTeam and Star Alliance respectively. Additionally, the battle also shifts to the product – where British Airways deploys a mix of new and old products, Virgin Atlantic has a refreshed fleet while Air India deploys a mix of former Etihad 777s and its legacy 787s which need an urgent upgrade in hardware.
Will Air India deploy the A350s to London and take on the competition with a superior or matching product? It could, the airline has six of those. However, I would expect the airline to also start deploying the planes to Frankfurt and Paris – which are daily operations, have been stagnant in terms of capacity and the change in equipment gives a good step up in both product and capacity.
Network Thoughts
All Bilateral negotiations happen with two aspects, one which are black and white and documented and another which are based on mutual understanding. Has there been a tacit understanding on granting slots to Air India next season? With IndiGo now ordering widebody aircraft, will it find a way to grab the London slot and start operations before the 350s arrive in 2027?
Will Air India be left with the option of buying slots as the last resort and will it invest as much also remains to be seen. Lastly, bilaterals apart – the airline could well increase flights to Gatwick, where it operates from Ahmedabad, Goa and Kochi. Airlines like Emirates which have multiple frequencies to London and may not have slots at Heathrow have relied on multiple airport operations in the London area.
The picture will get clear over the next 15 months. London remains one of the most popular destinations for travel from India and both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic focus on the transfer market to North America where they have a very large presence. Additionally, their partnerships with American Airlines and Delta (respectively) help offer many secondary cities in the US as part of a single itinerary. Virgin Atlantic had announced flights between Manchester and Delhi in the pandemic year. The flights never began as they were to start in October 2020. Will the airline plan for a similar route again?
