At 505 weekly flights, IndiGo will have the highest international departures on a standalone basis among all airlines, followed by Air India at 361, AI Express at 340, and Emirates at 170.
AI Express and Vistara will have 757 weekly flights
Three Tata Group airlines AI, AI Express, and Vistara will have 757 weekly flights, including the only ones by an Indian carrier to North America, Europe, the Far East, and Australia.
IndiGo’s Istanbul flight will resume from May 1; its pre-pandemic China flights have not yet resumed. Tata’s fourth airline, the eight-year-old AirAsia India, still does not have any international flights in the DGCA-approved schedule, indicating the possibility of an earlier merger with AI Express to fly abroad on the latter’s license.
Foreign airlines will again be able to offer one-stop transits to journey between India and the rest of the world through their hubs specifically those in the Gulf and a few in Southeast Asia, like Singapore.
International schedules for this summer
Airlines had applied for permission of their international schedules for this summer. These schedules will be effective from Sunday (March 27) to October 29 this year. “A sum of 1,466 departures per week by six Indian carriers have been approved to 43 destinations in 27 countries, including UAE (Indians’ biggest foreign destination), Singapore, Thailand, Qatar, Maldives, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Turkey, Malaysia, UK, France, Germany, the US, Canada, Australia, Israel, Japan, Hong Kong, and Russia,” a senior DGCA official told.
“Sixty foreign airlines of 40 countries have been permitted to operate 1,783 weekly flights to and from India. The airlines are from countries including Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, the US, Germany, Singapore, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, Maldives, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Japan, Russia, UAE, Australia, Qatar, Britain, Canada, and Egypt,” said the official. China is not on this list.
The DGCA-approved schedule indicates the maximum number of flights an airline can operate. The actual number operated depends on several factors, like the need for the journey, the financial health of airlines, and operating prices, which means how expensive fuel is and where all can an airline overfly.
In its international network, the nearly 300-plane-strong IndiGo will have the maximum frequency on the Gulf and Southeast Asia routes. IndiGo’s medium-haul play will begin in mid-2024 when it inducts the single-aisle Airbus A321 XLRs that will fly nonstop to the Far East and Europe.
Air India has not said if it plans to add US flights as United has stopped its Delhi-San Francisco and Mumbai-Newark flights because US carriers don’t overfly Russian airspace, something that AI does and, therefore, can take the quick possible routes in the long-hauls. Delta is yet to restart India operations after March 2020. American has only one direction as of now, a daily Delhi-JFK flight.
Tata Group’s Vistara has for months been looking if it should lease planes to start US nonstops; high fuel cost is coming in the way of the airline taking a call.
While it remains to be seen whether AI and Vistara, the only two Indian carriers operating wide-body aircraft, try to grow their share of travel between India and North America, one-stop biggies like Emirates, Qatar Airways, Lufthansa, and Singapore Airways are back in the game for the exact.
170 weekly flights between Dubai and
Emirates, the biggest foreign airline in terms of flights to and from India, will operate 170 weekly flights between Dubai and nine Indian cities. It will have five and four dailies to Mumbai and Delhi, said
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Air France-KLM expressed in a report they will “progressively increase flight operations from India, beginning with 20 weekly flights in April, and will expand frequency in May with 30 weekly flights.
Air France will operate from four gateways — Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai — and KLM from Delhi and Mumbai”.Virgin Atlantic says it will begin a second daily service between London Heathrow and Delhi from June 1. “Coupled with its service from Mumbai, Virgin Atlantic will offer three daily flights from India, making it the airline’s biggest flying program ever to India,” the airline told in a report.
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Source: The Time of India
