Air India’s low cost subsidiary Air India Express has opened reservations for flights to Dhaka. The airline will operate 12 flights a week to Dhaka, with six each from Kolkata and Chennai starting September 03, 2024. This will be the 15th International destination for the airline.
IX594 CCU1155 – 1330DAC
IX593 DAC2310 – 2345CCU
IX644 MAA1900 – 2210DAC
IX643 DAC1430 – 1650MAA
Flights will operate on all days except Mondays and the rotation will operate as Kolkata – Dhaka – Chennai – Dhaka – Kolkata.
Competition and market
IndiGo’s foray to Dhaka was in 2018 when it launched operations becoming the 55th destination in its network. SpiceJet had launched operations to Dhaka in 2017 as its seventh international destination. SpiceJet does not operate to Dhaka any more, while IndiGo operates to Dhaka from Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. IndiGo offers 35 weekly frequencies with double daily from Kolkata and daily from other three places.
Air India operates twice daily service to Dhaka from Delhi. However, even with double daily it does not seamlessly connect to its European bank both ways. A sizable Bangladeshi origin population exists in Europe and America and there are limited non-stop flights.Vistara, also, operates flights from Delhi and Mumbai.
Biman Bangladesh operates to Kolkata, Delhi and Chennai, while US-Bangla airlines operates to Kolkata and Chennai from Dhaka and operates the only non-stop connection from Chittagong to India which it does to Kolkata. Novoair operates a daily flight to Kolkata.
IndiGo is the largest player in the market by frequencies and seats, followed by Biman Bangla. The analysis is based on data shared by Cirium – an aviation analytics company, for the month of September 2024.
The market comprises a lot of medical tourism which sees connectivity to Chennai growing. There also is a trade connection with investments in textile and Indians working blue collar jobs in manufacturing.
Network Thoughts
India – Bangladesh has been referred to as a high volume, low yield market in the past. However, LCCs have the ability to spur the market and grow volumes helping inch up the yields. The current inaugural offer is clearly an indication for this.
The addition of Dhaka and adding flights from Chennai and Kolkata is a shot in the arm for these two airports, which will also see additions from Thai AirAsia with flights to Phuket. Both the airports have steadily lost services in recent past or not seen services return post pandemic.
For Air India Express or the Air India group, it aims to add 50 planes in 15 months. With nine months over, the target may not be fully met due to issues with Boeing but a sizable number of planes are already in India and finding new routes is important to stay sustainable. Dhaka, fits the bill well. Existing group airline operations help know the market, offer more options and build two airports where there is available capacity unlike Delhi or Mumbai.
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strange to see 0 non-stop currently between BLR, HYD – Bangla
indigo had started dhaca flights from Hyderabad. Wonder what happened to those