Connectivity, monopoly and airlines: How is winter shaping up for Indian aviation?

As the winter schedule kicks in, domestic airlines are already in expansion mode, with Air India Express expanding its services from Chennai and IndiGo opening up almost all flights on the IndiGoStretch between Delhi and Mumbai. Amid this frenzy, AIX Connect (erstwhile AirAsia India) merged with Air India Express, while Vistara will merge with Air India this month.

Data shared by Cirium — an aviation analytics company — throws up interesting statistics for November, after Vistara’s merger with Air India, the first full month of operations in the Northern Winter Schedule.

Hyderabad to host maximum domestic carriers

Last year, Hyderabad grew faster than its peers. It barged into the 25 million passengers club and has seen consistently double-digit passenger traffic growth since then. While it may have lost out to Bengaluru as the third hub for Air India, it sees the maximum number of domestic carriers operating, with eight carriers offering flights from Hyderabad, compared to seven in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Pune. India’s largest airport, Delhi, sees only six Indian carriers operate and is tied with nine other airports. 

IndiGo, Air India, Air India Express, AKasa Air, SpiceJet, Star Air and Fly91 have operations from Hyderabad. The only two airlines it does not handle are FlyBig and IndiaOne. Until recently, fly91 also operated to Bengaluru, where it has now stopped operations, pushing the city down by a position vis-a-vis airlines served.

Out of the 122 operational airports, a staggering 45 are served by only one airline. Amongst these 16 are served only by IndiGo, while 12 are served by government-owned Alliance Air.

Delhi continues to rule connectivity

India’s largest airport, Delhi, will see a total of 64 scheduled passenger airlines operations, followed by Mumbai at 49 and Bengaluru at 36. Chennai has 34, and Hyderabad 29. Kochi comes in next at 27, followed by Ahmedabad (22), Kolkata (21) and Trivandrum (17). Kozhikode and Lucknow tied at 13 airlines each, completing the top 10.

In terms of connectivity, Delhi rules the roost again with non-stop flights to 143 destinations in India and abroad. Mumbai follows with 109 destinations and Bengaluru with 100. Hyderabad, at 88, complete the top quartet. The others in the top 10 comprise Chennai (66), Kolkata (61), Ahmedabad (53), Lucknow and Pune (37 each) and Kochi (33).

Among the operational airports in India, 15 are connected to only one city, while another 15 are connected to two cities. Twelve airports are connected to three cities, ten are connected to four cities, and fourteen are connected to five. A total of 36 airports are connected to 10 or more destinations in India and abroad.

Monopoly routes

The schedule has 1136 city pairs this winter. Of these, a staggering 781, or 68 per cent, are monopoly routes, while 207, or 18 per cent, are duopolies. A staggering 542 out of 781 routes are IndiGo’s monopoly, while Alliance Air has 94. Star Air operates 48 of its routes as a monopoly.

Not only is IndiGo the topper in terms of monopoly routes, the airline operates 890 sectors, which is 78 per cent of the total routes in the country. Amongst its own routes, 87% of its routes are monopolies. A charge it often has to handle is that of the airline being a monopoly and raising fares. However, the latest earnings, when it recorded a quarterly loss of INR 987 crore, shows that it has not been able to push the market fares up just because it has a monopoly. With a rapid expansion plan of Air India Express being held up due to the strike at Boeing, IndiGo is building its own fortresses.

Tail Note

Recently, Bengaluru crossed the 100-destination mark. Delhi could well cross the 150-destination mark soon, with a few airlines lined up and Air India looking to expand further as it gets more aircraft.

Indian aviation is set for a minor rejig in mid-2025 as Noida International Airport at Jewar and the Navi Mumbai airport becomes operational. This may shift some connectivity from the current Mumbai airport to Navi Mumbai, primarily until the renovation and planned revamp of Terminal 1 is complete. The battle for slots could lead to some unpleasant quarterly numbers as airlines hope to capture the traffic first and hope for profitability to follow.