Air India Express, fully owned subsidiary of Air India, is launching flights to Bangkok. This will be a new destination for the airline and it will operate from Bangkok Suvarnabhumi – same as parent Air India which offers flights from Delhi and Mumbai.
The airline will fly from Surat and Pune to Bangkok, operating four times a week between Surat and Bangkok and thrice a week between Pune and Bangkok. While Surat – Bangkok will be a monopoly route, the airline will compete with IndiGo between Pune and Bangkok, where IndiGo started flights only recently.
Flights begin December 20, 2024 and add on to the rapid expansion which the India – Thailand market has seen over the last year and half on the back of free-visa on arrival regime for Indian nationals. Even when the party felt over, airlines are adding flights to Thailand with new airlines from both sides adding flights. Thai VietJet will be launching flights this December, and so will Air India Express.
The flights from both Surat & Pune will be operated by the dual class MAX 8 aircraft, which the airline will be converting to mono class starting next Summer. This marks addition of international services at Surat for Air India Express, while restarting international services from Pune, from where it operated a thrice weekly service to Dubai until the pandemic.
The timings for the flights are as below,
IX264 STV0935 – 1535BKK IX263 BKK1635 – 1935STV
Flights between Surat and Bangkok operate on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays
IX242 PNQ0840 – 1430BKK IX241 BKK1535 -1825PNQ
Flights between Pune and Bangkok operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. These days carefully avoid the departures by IndiGo, which also operates thrice a week service between the two cities.
Both Surat and Pune are part of the top 10 metropolitan regions in India but have challenges with air connectivity. Pune is a defense airfield with restrictions on operations. Both these points are not part of major points of call with most airlines and cannot handle widebody operations.
Network Thoughts
From no flight to a sudden spurt of six flights a week between Pune and Bangkok, it is a big leap for a route which has not been successful in the past, not once but twice. Air India has codeshare with Bangkok Airways to carry traffic beyond Bangkok. However, this codeshare does not extend to Air India Express.
Air India Express, on the other hand, has been looking at interesting alternatives like providing a combined itinerary with Scoot with the help of Dohop , which could work well at Bangkok – thanks to the free visa on arrival for Indian nationals, unlike Singapore where the self-connect option will need a visa. 3
Bangkok has been a domain for Air India even as it let a lot of points in the Gulf be transferred to Air India Express. This looked largely due to the feed the mainline carrier has to and from Bangkok for its European and North American operations, unlike Air India Express which is looking at point to point traffic. With both carriers being unlisted, it remains uncertain on the unit cost for both but going by announcements in the past, Air India Express seems to be significantly more competitive as compared to Air India and is now the front for trying out new routes, taking on IndiGo and taking over routes which are either on wafer thin profits or do not contribute significantly to a larger feed for the mainline.
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