Days after Vistara’s merger, Air India is shifting gears to offer a better product on the lucrative metro routes. Starting December 01, 2024; the airline will deploy erstwhile Vistara A320neo aircraft on five key metro to metro routes with a consistent three cabin class experience. This also sees the airline optimize frequency and departure times, a much needed move which
This also comes amidst criticism of its existing product and the message that went to the market with a mixed product.
What will change?
The five sectors listed below will see erstwhile Vistara A320 series aircraft offering Business, Premium Economy and Economy class being deployed.
- Delhi and Mumbai
- Delhi and Bengaluru
- Delhi and Hyderabad
- Mumbai and Bengaluru
- Mumbai and Hyderabad
Passengers can identify such flights with four digit flight number beginning with “2”, a practice which Air India tried implementing with the merger of Vistara but has not been consistent with since the day of the merger.
The airline will continue to offer the same frequencies between the sectors but with a schedule which is spread out. Since the schedules were historically built as competitors, there remain a handful of flights which depart at the same time or back to back between the metro cities. The merged Air India is leader in frequency and capacity between Delhi – Mumbai – Delhi and Delhi – Bengaluru – Delhi routes, where it dethroned IndiGo. As per Air India, it operates 56 daily round trips between Delhi – Mumbai, 36 between Delhi – Bengaluru, 34 between Delhi – Hyderabad, 22 between Mumbai – Bengaluru and 18 between Mumbai – Hyderabad.
The offering will now be standardised to 8 Business Class seats, 24 Premium Economy and 132 Economy class seats and comes at a time when IndiGo has started deployment of its IndiGoStretch product, which sits between Air India’s Premium Economy and Business class offerings but is priced cheaper than the traditional Business class.
Network Thoughts
The preparations for such a shift would have been in place for long since the merger was known. A merger involves working with regulatory authorities, airports and multiple such stakeholders. With the major airports being part of these five routes, changing slots is not an easy challenge to have. While these are early days to analyse the change in timings, it is a very big achievement to pull off.
However, there are two drawbacks of these. The first is that aircraft from multiple other routes would be pulled out to facilitate this shift. Passengers who have already booked these flights with AI-”2” prefixed flight numbers expecting erstwhile Vistara aircraft will be in for a shock now. Secondly, Air India will continue to operate one widebody flight each between Delhi and Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad using its B777 or A350 aircraft. While the A350 is new, the B777 can be a lucky draw for the passenger. The airline, though, is taking care to number it differently.