- Subsidiary Air India Express launches flights to Bangkok from Tier II cities
- Air India Express to connect Mangalore to Singapore
Air India – the Tata group enterprise, is undergoing a major rejig to its operations on the international sector. This comes within weeks of Vistara’s merger into Air India. The airline has simultaneously rejigged it’s international widebody network along with short haul international network, as it goes for more connections along with creating two banks of flights to points in Europe. How does it translate for the flights to Australia in terms of yields and O-D (Origin – Destination) traffic will have to be watched over the next season or so.
Read: Four Airports, Two Banks – Air India rejigs its widebody international network
The changes in its overall network over the next two months makes it focus more on Delhi than Mumbai, as Mumbai sees a reduction in flights to Paris, Bangkok and Singapore. These changes could be subject to revision and have been analysed via booking engine searches (on Air India website and Google Flights).
Singapore – new point and equipment changes
Air India Express, the low cost fully owned subsidiary of Air India, will be launching flights to Singapore from Mangalore. The service is operational only twice a week and operates on Tuesdays and Fridays at below timings.
IX862 IXE 0555 – 1325SIN
IX861 SIN1425 – 1655IXE
This flight is being funded by cancelling the Madurai – Singapore leg on two days, where the frequency goes down to four flights a week from the current six. There obviously is a lot of discussion on why the airline is launching this route, when Mangalore traffic is predominantly seen as a middle east traffic generator. There are multiple reasons why an airline could do it and a few of them are exploring new routes to Singapore with twice a week being a safer strategy; exploring routes which can make lesser losses or more profit than Madurai – Singapore – as the case may be; rationalising capacity on Madurai – Singapore to push up yields based on demand being few of them. While it remains debatable on how many passengers fly to Singapore from Mangalore, what cannot be overlooked now is Air India Express – Scoot partnership via Dohop which helps sell a combined itinerary beyond Singapore on the Scoot network. Is there any traffic from Mangalore which may be bound for parts of ASEAN or Australia and can this be a ploy to tap that traffic? I would be inclined to nod a Yes.
Air India currently connects Singapore to Bengaluru & Chennai (Daily), Mumbai & Delhi (thrice a day), Pune (five or six times a week, depending on season). The changes see the Bengaluru – Singapore sector moving to a former Vistara A320neo service from the current Air India metal, cancelling one of three Mumbai – Singapore service – which is linked to Chennai since it operates as Mumbai – Singapore – Chennai – Singapore – Mumbai, re-timing Chennai – Singapore – Chennai service and equipment change to A321 (legacy Air India aircraft). The Mumbai – Singapore – Mumbai sector will see double daily flights, operated by the ex-Vistara aircraft.
The Delhi focus is stronger with one of the three daily flights being upgraded to B789 dreamliner (ex-Vistara). This is also the flight which connects to Singapore Airlines’ bank of flights and is a popular time for tourists and business travellers. With this change, the sector sees all flights with three classes of service. The Pune – Singapore flight continues its five times a week operation.
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Bangkok
Air India express is launching routes to Bangkok with flights from Pune, Surat, Amritsar and Lucknow starting this month. Early next year, Air India moves its focus on the Delhi – Bangkok sector by adding a fourth daily frequency. This addition is funded by reducing flights between Mumbai and Bangkok. This also sees a change in equipment with the current ex-Vistara A321neo making way for Air India’s three class A320neo. The flights from Delhi are also operated by Air India metal but three out of four flights feature a premium economy cabin.
The new flight is numbered AI-304 which departs Delhi at 1600 hours and reaches Bangkok – Suvarnabhumi at 2130 hours. The return flight would be AI-303 which will depart Bangkok – Suvarnabhumi at 2230 hours and arrive into Delhi at 0200 hours the next day. With this the four departures from Delhi will be at 0150, 0820, 1130 and 1600 hours. The additional departure will cater to possible connections from the USA, with the arrivals into Delhi being 1300 hrs (Chicago), 1135 hrs (Newark), 1105 hrs (New York) in addition to a host of domestic connections easing out the peak time flights. The airline will have to work towards introducing premium economy on the one flight where it is not currently selling the service to ensure seamless offerings on the sector.
The shift to Delhi looks more towards focusing on a stronger hub and connecting passengers, which is the new focus area for the airline. The airline is possibly late to join the party on routes to Thailand and thus would rather focus on connecting traffic to avoid wading the flood of seats being added by Thai carriers to India.
Network Thoughts
There are a couple of scenarios which are playing in my mind. The first one involves Pune, where the airline time and again adjusts the frequency between six and five times a week. If the airline is not able to attract a premium, will it shift the route to Air India Express or look at equipment changes which will free up a A321neo and instead see a legacy two class A320 or a three class A320neo in operation? The other is about Mangalore, where if the performance outperforms the estimation or does better than some other route in the network, the airline will be tempted to adjust the frequency further to either three or four times a week operation. What eventually matters is how much profit a route makes or how less loss a route makes.
It is highly unlikely that an airline will lose good slots at either Mumbai or Delhi. What needs to be now tracked is how the airline will utilise these vacated slots, which are some peak timed ones. This could be the next wave, possibly beginning Summer schedule and see more destinations being connected.
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