IndiGo’s one-stops to Bali, why the hurry?

Over the last few days, IndiGo announced additional flights to Denpasar, Bali, where it already operates from Bengaluru, its longest flight thus far on its own metal. With the lack of range, its flights from Mumbai to Bali, will take a tech stop at Chennai, while those from Delhi to Bali will have a tech stop at Bhubaneshwar. This hurry possibly lies in cornering the additional seats under the revised Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA), details of which were removed from the public domain citing various reasons. News reports have indicated that the MoU signed early this year moved from frequency based to seat based. The earlier BASA restricted flights from each country to 28 frequencies a week or 4 frequencies a day. As per the news report, the revised BASA restricts the rights to 9000 seats a week each way. 

Vistara started operations to Bali from Delhi in December 2023, subsequently upgrading it to a Dreamliner flight in March 2024. Post merger with Air India, the flight first shifted to a legacy Air India Dreamliner and later to the A321LR of Vistara which it now operates. At 299 seats a flight (Vistara Dreamliner capacity), Air India would have 2093 seats a week, while IndiGo operates the A320neo to Jakarta from Mumbai and to Denpasar, Bali from Bengaluru. This could mean, IndiGo holds 2604 seats a week. Air India’s plans for flights to Jakarta were well reported and the flight also appeared on the FIDS (Flight Information Display System) / website of Delhi Airport, indicating that the airline did have rights or continues to have so but has not been able to start due to aircraft issues. Assuming that the rights are with the A321LR, the airline would have a further of 1274 seats. While this means under the old bilateral, the capacity is up but under the seat based bilateral, Air India would hold 3367 seats while IndiGo would hold 2604 seats. Let us assume that the news report about a 9000 seat per week cap is true. This means that the available seats under the bilateral stand at 3029 only. 

This calculation would open up the eyes for those wondering why IndiGo is in a hurry to operate flights to Bali and with a stop which isn’t exactly convenient. Two A320neo with 186 seats to Indonesia indicates 2604 weekly seats, taking away a large chunk of the 3029 seats that would be on offer with the revision, leaving competition with only 425 seats which is roughly equivalent to an incremental two or three frequencies a week depending on which aircraft is deployed. This effectively shuts out the competition completely and gives IndiGo a fast mover advantage. A masterstroke if one would look at it from a planning perspective. 

However, this comes with its own set of challenges. Both Mumbai and Delhi are well connected with Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Singapore and now with Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. These five airports, especially the first three have exemplary connectivity with Denpasar and are known as great transit hubs. With a one-stop without a charging port or inflight streaming and with cold meals, how does IndiGo plan to compete with the one-stops which AirAsia Bhd, Thai AirAsia India, Batik Air Malaysia, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways offer on the route?

The first of the XLRs for the airline are expected anytime between December to February and will see operations to Athens. Subsequently the airline will get additional XLRs, which will help fly to Bali from both Mumbai and Delhi, non-stop. Eventually it looks certain that these routes will see the XLRs being deployed, which also come with two class and finer product details like availability of ovens is awaited. 

The timings for Delhi – Bali – Delhi route look like a swap of planes in Bali, with the one coming in from Bengaluru. At the time of writing, the Bengaluru – Bali schedule was not updated. The IndiGo flights to Bali are as below,

In all probabilities, there could be further revisions to the schedule

Note: The calculation is based on the news reports about the seats on offer, as both India and Indonesia have not put the revised Bilateral Air Services Agreement in public domain.

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