Air India’s low cost subsidiary Air India Express, will launch operations to Patna starting today. Patna is a new destination for Air India Express and the airline will connect Patna with Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Bhubaneswar with daily flights starting tomorrow (January 15, 2025)
IX2936 BLR0630 – 0905PAT MAX8
IX2937 PAT0935 – 1215BLR MAX8
IX2894 HYD1105 – 1305PAT 32N
IX2887 PAT1345 – 1555HYD 32N
IX2759 BBI1455 – 1620PAT 320
IX2760 PAT1700 – 1830BBI 320
The equipment is based on what they are currently selling but with a varied fleet, remains up for changes depending on operational needs.
Get introduced to Airline network planning with this 2.5 hours session on February 01, 2025
Patna
Patna is the capital and largest city of Bihar with the airport one of the top 20 airports in India. The airport has been one of the challenging ones to operate with a shortened runway and obstacles around. A couple of years ago, operations started at Darbhanga Airport which catered to a region of Bihar which otherwise relied on Patna for flying out. The central government has sanctioned funds for development of facilities at Bihta Air Force Station which will have a civilian enclave. At the current airport, the Airports Authority of India has done everything possible to accommodate more flights, including expanding the apron and the terminal. At times, even temporary tents were pitched to accommodate fliers.
IndiGo has a leadership position at Patna with 204 weekly frequencies connecting 13 destinations with non-stop flights. SpiceJet is the other carrier apart from IndiGo and Air India group. SpiceJet operates 26 weekly departures to four destinations. Parent Air India operates a daily flight to Mumbai, while it has 27 weekly flights to Delhi.
Network Thoughts
What started as segregation by destination has now come at a route level. Air India has transferred a few aircraft to Air India Express. Not just planes, a lot of routes have been transferred too and in some cases all flights to a particular station.
It is very clear that Air India Express is the tool to take on IndiGo and build the domestic point to point services web for the Tata group, while Air India focuses on the top three airports and any route which would feed its long haul network, irrespective of the size of the airport or city.
The rapid expansion has had its toll though with quite a few flights being announced and not starting (like flights to Hindon, Dhaka or the Mangalore – Singapore flight which was announced and pulled out even before starting. As the airline touches 100 plane mark soon, it will have to be serious with its network, not only for itself but for the larger Tata group.
Special Note – Power of 10
You can support Network Thoughts by ordering Network Thoughts baggage tags !
Follow NetworkThoughts on X (Formerly Twitter), Bsky, Facebook, Telegram and YouTube.
Running this website incurs some cost, along with the data sourced for analytics. If you have liked this article, consider paying INR 10 via UPI. The site will continue to be free. This will help with the maintenance, upkeep and funding the research.
You can also pay via Debit or Credit card by clicking on this link.
https://js.stripe.com/v3/buy-button.js