Airlines are flying into this winter with flat capacity

Regionals holding on

The regional carriers, led by Star Air, have been slowly increasing their presence in the country. They have also increased their utilisation significantly and performed better in slot adherence. Star Air, Indiaone, and FLy91 have plans to add flights, while flybig has shrunk, operating only 26.5 per cent of its approved schedule in August, and the revised schedule is more realistic.

Merger with 30% market share?

As part of the Vihaan.AI initiative of Air India, the group mentioned its intention of having a 30 per cent market share in a span of five years. The airline group has inched closer to that number much earlier with September seeing over 29 per cent market share by the four airlines. As the AirAsia India merger with Air India Express is complete and Vistara merges with Air India on November 12, will the merger bring good news in November itself?

Purely by numbers, the Tata group of airlines have 30.43 per cent of all departures this winter. With a better rate of flight deployment by these airlines as compared to few others and a certainty that the schedule won’t be at its peak in the very first month of operation, coupled with higher load factors which Air India and Vistara have been clocking, all indicators point to a 30 per cent market share for the two Tata group airlines at the end of November according to the reports published in livemint.com.

Tail Note

In the current season, SpiceJet and Air India Express have had poor utilisation of their approved flights, with everybody else either operating more than their approved schedule or nearly as much. Such issues, when faced at metro airports, lead to a shortage of capacity, and at non-metro or smaller airports, they could lead to loss of connectivity.

IndiGo is a winner by a margin, and with other airlines not being able to scale up, the advantage the airline will continue to enjoy is massive. However, last winter, IndiGo was in the news for all the wrong reasons. A massive operation comes with its own set of challenges. How will this winter be for IndiGo? For the Tata group, it is still a phase of consolidation, but IndiGo cannot hide behind that this winter.