ALSO READ: IndiGo will strike gold if Air India's global business is sold separately
Air India operates 24 global destinations
Air India, meanwhile, operates to 24 destinations across the world and has a prodigious frequency to certain cities. Air India flew twice daily to New York’s two airports, every day to Chicago, and thrice a week in winters to San Francisco. It operated 28 weekly flights in winters to London and flew daily to Birmingham, Frankfurt, Paris, and Italian cities. It operated 141 flights a week to cities in the Gulf region. IndiGo, meanwhile, is confined to operating in the South East Asian and Gulf region. Air India’s flights to Australia, Russia, and Japan too have very few domestic competitors and could be a shot in the arm for IndiGo’s global ambitions.
ALSO READ: Why IndiGo expressing interest in Air India sounds both bizarre and brave
This allows Air India to sell tickets from other airlines, which helps it reduce its costs and ensure travellers reach less-serviced destinations with ease. For instance, it has 12 of these code-sharing arrangements with Air Canada. In seven of these, Air India is the operating airline and Air Canada is the marketing airline. These arrangements allow travellers to book a single ticket and reach most of the big cities in Canada and some metropolitan airports of India aboard both these airlines. Air India’s code-sharing agreements allow its passengers to fly deep and to under-served airports. Its code-sharing agreement with the Ethiopian Airlines allows its fliers to fly to airports like Kigali, Entebbe, and Dare e Salam on a single ticket via Addis Ababa. Its code-sharing arrangements with the Turkish Airlines allows its passengers from India to fly to other Turkish cities like Antalya, Izmir, Ankara, Adana, and Dalaman the same way. If IndiGo decides to go through with acquiring Air India’s international operations, it would be almost at par with Jet Airways, which claims to have code-sharing agreements with 20 airlines.
ALSO READ: IndiGo 2.0: Co-founders makes case for buying Air India's global operations
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