Over the weekend, IndiGo launched services to Hindon, Ghaziabad. In a few weeks time, IndiGo will become the largest carrier at Hindon, surpassing Air India Express and offer more seats per week than any other airline. Hindon will also be the 32nd most busiest airport for IndiGo by seats deployed.
IndiGo operates to 93 destinations within India, with two of those being seasonal (Jaisalmer and Khajuraho) and operational towards the end of summer schedule and into winter. As of today, the airline is operating to 91 domestic destinations. Amongst these 91, I went checking if there are any airports where the competition has more seats on offer than IndiGo with data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company.
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Five airports where other airlines triumph IndiGo
Port Blair
IndiGo offers 4504 weekly seats from Port Blair, while the leader from Port Blair currently is Air India Express which deploys 7068 weekly seats. Air India and Akasa Air are the other carriers who operate to Port Blair. The destination is seasonal in nature with peak traffic from early October until the end of March. IndiGo is connecting Port Blair only to the traditional gateways of Chennai and Kolkata right now, while Air India Express continues to offer flights to Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Bhubaneshwar and Vizag.
Kolhapur
IndiGo landed up in Kolhapur with RCS-UDAN routes and at a time when it also saw Alliance Air and Star Air operate. Over a period of time IndiGo tried multiple options from Kolhapur, including flights to Ahmedabad and Tirupati. As things stand, the growth wasn’t as expected with IndiGo’s routes especially on the other side of COVID and the airline vacated routes to operate to Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Star Air filled up some void with flights to Tirupati and Ahmedabad, while it continues to offer other connections like Nagpur, Bengaluru and Mumbai.
Kishangarh
IndiGo recently started flights to Kishangarh in Rajasthan with flights from Ahmedabad on the ATR 72-600s. The airport has duopoly with the other carrier being Star Air, which connects Kishangarh to Pune, Hindon, Lucknow and Nagpur.
Kishangarh – Hindon operations are under RCS-UDAN and possibly a mix of UDAN rules along with lack of slots for ATR at Delhi Airport would mean IndiGo cannot operate Delhi – Kishangarh, for now. The airport cannot handle the A320s, just yet.
Agatti
After Prime Minister Modi visited Lakshadweep, the island became a hotspot of tourism and demand more than tripled with hotel brands rushing in to build resorts. Airlines were not far behind with IndiGo starting services from Bengaluru and Kochi, Alliance Air augmenting its Kochi services and Fly91 linking Goa-Mopa with Agatti. IndiGo has since scaled the services back on a seasonal basis while the other two continue making IndiGo offer fewer seats than Alliance Air or Fly91.
Shivamogga
The airport serving Shimoga / Shivamogga in Karnataka sees Star Air, SpiceJet and IndiGo operate. SpiceJet operates to Chennai and Hyderabad while Star Air operates to Goa – Mopa, Hyderabad and Tirupati. IndiGo operates the ATR 72-600 to Bengaluru.
The TATA power
One obvious question is what happens when the Tata group (Air India and Air India Express) is considered as a combined entity since there are all indications that the two will work even more closely in future, than today. Together, there are 55 unique airports where Air India and Air India Express operate.
There are two airports which does not see IndiGo operate, viz. Jamnagar and Bhuj and two more where the combined power of two Tata group airlines offer more seats than IndiGo. These are Bagdogra, where traditionally AirAsia India had taken a lead over IndiGo and the merger amongst the group companies has ensured that the lead continues, Port Blair where IndiGo has seasonally scaled down.
Where do you think IndiGo is headed from here on?
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