The private airlines are spreading their wings on international routes. Earlier this month, the civil aviation ministry allowed IndiGo, Jet Airways and SpiceJet to add flights to Gulf, South East Asia and Saarc countries in the summer schedule. Also, Jet Airways has been allowed to introduce services to Frankfurt, Munich, Paris and the US in the winter schedule.
The private airlines are trying to expand their presence in international market and capitalise on the withdrawal of Kingfisher Airlines from international routes. At present, Indian airlines have a share of 30 per cent of international traffic to and from India. With civil aviation minister Ajit Singh opening up new routes and granting traffic rights to private airlines, the share of Indian carriers in international traffic could grow up to 40 per cent, feel analysts.
At present, SpiceJet flies to Kathmandu and Colombo, while IndiGo flies to Dubai, Muscat, Kathmandu, Bangkok and Singapore. Jet Airways flies to 24 international destinations but recently announced withdrawal of Johannesburg flights. International operations contribute 55-60 per cent of Jet Airways revenue.
| SPREADING WINGS Private airlines add more foreign destinations as Ministry of Civil Aviation approves new international routes | |
| Airline | Destinations |
| IndiGo | Kathmandu, Singapore, Bangkok, Dubai and Jeddah (summer schedule) |
| Jet Airways | Chittagong, Dhaka, Kuwait, Male, Singapore, Dar-es-Salaam, Bangkok and Dubai (summer schedule), Munich, Frankfurt, Paris, Brussels/ Chicago/San Francisco/Washington DC (winter schedule) |
| SpiceJet | Kabul, Guangzhou, Colombo, Bangkok, Male, Dubai and Hong Kong (summer schedule) |
| Source: Ministry of Civil Aviation | |
According to airline sources, Kingfisher’s withdrawal from international routes had given a breather to Air India and Jet Airways before the former was struck by a pilots’ strike. Yields have improved on Singapore, Hong Kong and London routes. “It has even helped British Airways, which flies on Mumbai-London route. Kingfisher was selling tickets at a discount and it was impacting our bottomline too,’’ a Jet Airways executive said.
Jet is also adding a fourth daily flight between Mumbai-Dubai, the busiest international route from India. Emirates has five daily services and Air India and IndiGo flights as well. SpiceJet too, has been permitted to launch Mumbai-Dubai flight.
“Competition could drive down fares and there could be undercutting in fares on the Dubai route,’’ the executive added.
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IndiGo and SpiceJet did not respond to email queries. A Jet Airways spokesperson said the airline continuously examines new routes but had not taken a final decision in this regard.
“We expect the share of Indian carriers in India-bound international traffic to grow from current 30 per cent to 40 per cent in next two years and the 50 per cent mark in five years time,” said Amber Dubey, partner and head (aviation) at KPMG.
“The competition would indeed be tough, but Indian carriers, with their deep focus on value based pricing, consumer knowledge and operational efficiency stand a very good chance. Aircraft utilisation, paying capacity of consumers, fuel burn per seat-kilometre and the net yield on international routes are much better than the highly competitive domestic sector. The choice of destinations and the code share agreements with other airlines would be of critical importance since the initial fixed cost of international operations is quite high,” Dubey added.
Air services between two countries are governed by Air Services Agreements, which provide for seat entitlements to carriers of both countries. When an airline is given permission to fly on a certain foreign route, it is designated by the civil aviation ministry to utilise that number of seats per week. The same is communicated to the civil aviation department of the respective country. The airline has to subsequently file schedule and obtain clearance from airport operator and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to operate the flight.