Edition 72
The past week was all about Vistara’s last flight and first flight of IndiGoStretch. Two significant announcements were missed in the process, both concerning Hyderabad. Cathay Pacific announced its return to Hyderabad effective Summer 2025 and KLM announced the launch of services to Hyderabad, its fourth destination in India starting September 2025.
Hyderabad is the fourth busiest airport in the country but lacks in terms of international traffic to Bengaluru, which itself isn’t third in international traffic, even though it is third in the country overall. As the battle for international traffic in the south heats up with Bengaluru, Kochi, Chennai and Hyderabad in the play – there is another thing to look at here. Look at the timings of announcements of both Cathay Pacific and KLM. They are announcing at least a season in advance and in the case of KLM, even more. The Indian market is often considered a late booking market. Compare that to IndiGo, which announced its flights to Langkawi, barely a month in advance.
When will Indian carriers have the foresight and the ability to announce so much in advance? I would look at Air India to be in a position to announce destinations in advance, however that is too much to ask at the moment considering the state in which the airline is right now, even after privatisation. However, if it has to be in a league of its own then someday it has to reach here.
As IndiGo inducts the A350s, it will be interesting to see if it can match the global benchmarks. Both IndiGo and Air India have expats who have worked with some of the leading airlines in the world which have consistently planned well ahead and announced routes. Can the best practices come to India?
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It might be to build up loads from the beginning itself to judge whether these flights may be profitable or not. KLM will heavily compete with Air India one stop routes via DEL/BOM/BLR for westerly traffic and the ME3 for USA traffic, which is high from HYD, hence the September start date which is when colleges have maximum intake. It would be interesting to see the Air France KLM dynamics in play at HYD.
Cathay on the other hand seems like a good move, and the flight gels well with their connections onward to Australia and South East Asia.