Goa headquartered regional carrier Fly91 has inducted planes in quick succession taking its fleet count to six ATR 72-600s and is expanding rapidly from its Hyderabad base. This will get the airline into a direct competition with other national players for the first time. The airline is also expanding to its existing stations like Solapur with more connectivity and to Sindhudurg where it is a monopoly operator, as it has won a single year VGF (Viability Gap Funding) from Maharashtra government for flights from Mumbai, a route which Alliance Air operated in the past.
The airline will launch five new sectors between April 10, 2026 and April 17, with flights to Rajamahendravaram (Rajahmundry), Vijayawada and Hubballi. The airline is nearly doubling its offering in the market with 30,000 additional seats per month. For context, the airline deployed approximately 32,000 seats in February.
Three new planes
The airline which started operations with two ATR 72-600 aircraft has tripled its fleet since then to have six aircraft in its fleet. The last three planes were added in quick succession between January and March this year. While the growth is welcome, the pace at which it has come could throw in challenges for the airlines in terms of scaling, right from availability of pilots, maintenance, the increased pricing of crude right now and the pressure on demand due to the ongoing middle east war.
This expansion will also lead to a direct competition with IndiGo in most cases.
Many more routes
The airline had started basing one out of three planes at Hyderabad, with Goa-Mopa possibly not able to sustain three early morning departures for the airline. One aircraft is earmarked for Lakshadweep, while the other operates to Pune – Sindhudurg in the morning. It had time and again tried the Goa-Mopa to Hyderabad and Bengaluru combination in the morning with Hyderabad sustaining while Bengaluru failing after multiple attempts. The airline continues limited Bengaluru operations right now, with the RCS route to Sindhudurg being operational again.
The expansion now takes place from Hyderabad with double daily operations to Rajahmundry, Vijayawada and once a day service between Hyderabad – Hubballi and Bengaluru – Hubballi. The airline will also connect Solapur to Hyderabad with five times a week service and increase frequency between Goa and Solapur to six flights per week. IndiGo is also present on both its routes to Hubballi. IndiGo is known to be a tough competitor irrespective of the size and scale of the competition and that has been seen time and again in the past even with smaller competitors like flybig.
Hyderabad – the largest hub
The airline started with Goa base and with more aircraft in fleet, the largest airport is now Hyderabad, followed by Goa – Mopa. The approved schedule of the airline published by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on its website for Summer 2026 shows that the airline has intentions to operate from Goa – Dabolim as well.
However, from near monopoly operations of the airline it will now compete with IndiGo on Hyderabad – Vijayawada (6x daily by IndiGo, 1x daily by Air India Express), Hyderabad – Rajahmundry (6x daily by IndiGo)
Network Thoughts
The airline was sitting pretty with a host of UDAN routes which included Priority RCS routes to Lakshadweep. The airline had said that it would add flights to Indore, Nanded and Mangalore in the coming weeks, which would likely be from Hyderabad with the aircraft based there having slack in their schedule to take on additional flights.
The current times are tough and the doubling of capacity will put significant pressure on the airline on the costs side. Its execution will have to be flawless to attract passengers at yields which are attractive for passengers and sustainable for the airline. The summer holiday season is a great headstart, but the word of caution for such a rapid expansion is always around. Fly91 may be willing to risk taking up the space which Trujet occupied at Hyderabad in its route portfolio, but that comes with its own risks.
Was the doubling of capacity a master stroke or came at the wrong time will be known six months down the line.
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