Air India Express, the low cost subsidiary of Air India, will launch Phuket as its new destination this month. The airline will eventually operate six times a week between Hyderabad and Phuket. Flights begin Jan 31, 2025.
This comes a few weeks after the airline launched flights to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport, where it now serves from Surat, Pune, Amritsar and Lucknow. Parent Air India flies to Phuket where it began operations in December 2023. Air India doubled up on the route in June last year..
Learn the art and science of Airline Network Planning on Jan 11, 2025.
Air India Express has chosen Hyderabad to launch flights to Phuket. This also marks a remarkable shift in strategy for the Air India group, which had earlier focused on having one station to either of the airline with Air India vacating flights from Agartala or Port Blair. Similarly, a handful of destinations in the gulf saw transfer from Air India to Air India Express. However, with Phuket – it seems like the airline group is now open to exploring joint destinations with certain routes being operated by Air India Express while the main metro ones from where Air India can feed its international network, remaining with the mainline carrier and possibly seeing a shift to a three class configuration.
The timings and the complexity
A look at the Air India Express timings shows that the flights do not have the same slots on all days of operations. The Hyderabad – Phuket leg which operates as IX 910 will depart at 1220 from Hyderabad on Wednesdays and Fridays; 1150 from Hyderabad on Saturdays and Sundays. The frequency starts with four times a week operation (Wed, Fri, Sat and Sun). From Feb 17, 2025 the frequency increases with Monday departures being added and the departure time being 0640 hours. Subsequently, flights also operate on Thursdays but the booking engine shows a different flight number (IX912) with departure from Hyderabad at 1615 hours. Likewise, the return timings vary with IX 909 being the flight number for the Phuket – Hyderabad leg. On Wednesdays and Fridays, the flight departs Phuket at 1820 hours, on Saturday and Sunday at 1805 hours and when the frequency increases, on Mondays at 1350 hours, while Thursday will again see a different flight number (IX911) with a 2230 hours departure.
The change of flight number from Phuket to Hyderabad on Thursdays is understandable because it arrives the next day (Friday) into Hyderabad at 0035 hours. Flight safety rules bar the same flight number arriving twice from the same destination on the same day. The scheduled arrival of IX 909 on Friday is 2025 hours. Why has the airline changed the flight number of Hyderabad – Phuket leg remains a question mark for me. The differential timings are just a way to get a foothold in the market according to me and the timings will be synchronised going forward or in some cases even before the first flight departs.
Network Thoughts
GoAir was the pioneer of non-stop flights to Phuket from India in 2018. IndiGo followed suit and now has the largest presence between India and Phuket. With multiple options available, the question to answer always is why a particular city pair and not another. Hyderabad is a smart choice since Phuket is connected to Bengaluru (IndiGo), Chennai (Thai AirAsia) and Kolkata (Thai AirAsia and IndiGo).
Over a period of time, the airlines will feel the need for one single PNR to have an ability to sell multi stop itineraries irrespective of which carrier is operating. Like Singapore Airlines (finally) decided to collaborate with Low cost carrier subsidiary Scoot, Air India and Air India Express will reach a point where they cross sell as a single itinerary moving beyond the limited co-operation that they currently have. Hopefully the focus also shifts on branding where there are new livery Air India A350s, old livery B777s, intermediate livery B777s, old livery A320 family, new livery A320 family, Vistara livery A320 family, Vistara livery 789, Air India livery 788s, old livery IX 737s, new livery MAX 8, red colored A320s, Air India livery A320s operating for Air India Express and new livery A320s.
You can support Network Thoughts by ordering Network Thoughts baggage tags !
Follow NetworkThoughts on X (Formerly Twitter), Bsky, Facebook, Telegram and YouTube.
There is now an option to pay for a coffee to thank Network Thoughts for the effort that is put into the research needed to present these posts. The site will continue to be free. If you have learnt from Network Thoughts and want to pay a fair price for the content, you can scan this QR code to support this