Vistara mulls making Bengaluru second base

Lack of night parking bays at Mumbai airport reason for looking at south

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Vistara is planning to expand operations in Bengaluru after consolidating its presence on the key Delhi-Mumbai route in its year of service.

The airline may develop Bengaluru as its second base for overnight parking. Its inability to secure night parking bays in the capacity-constrained Mumbai airport and the desire to grow its business outside core markets (Delhi and Mumbai) is said to be behind the move.

Vistara, a joint venture of Tata group and Singapore Airlines, began operations last January and has nine Airbus A320 aircraft at present. It parks seven of them at Delhi, its main base, and one each at Mumbai and Bengaluru. It will induct four A320s this year.

Sources said the airline is in discussion with Bengaluru airport and may park two of the four new aircraft there. However, it is yet to be finalised.

The other Tata group airline, AirAsia India, uses Bengaluru as its main base.

“With a focus on enhancing our connectivity in key metros, Vistara has increased the frequency of its existing Delhi-Bengaluru service, offering convenient same-day return options to customers in both cities. We already park one of our aircraft in Bengaluru to facilitate early morning departure and late evening arrival from/ to the city,” Vistara said. It did not specifically respond to queries on its growth plans.

Bengaluru airport is the third busiest in the country after Delhi and Mumbai, with around 210 daily domestic departures. IndiGo is the biggest airline at Bengaluru, accounting for over a third of all domestic departures  (76), while Jet Airways is the second biggest with 49 daily departures. Delhi and Mumbai are the top two destinations served from Bengaluru.

"Bengaluru should definitely be on Vistara's radar. I am surprised the airline has taken so long to scale up operations from here. Bengaluru is a large market for corporate travel and Vistara will be able to find customers for its product, especially the premium economy service," said Devesh Agarwal, editor of Bangalore Aviation, an aviation blog.

Vistara, which struggled to fill up its flights in the initial months, has seen growth in its loads following tweaks in schedule and after introducing incentives to agents. Its load factor was around 73 per cent in the first two months of 2016 and it has a two per cent market share.

The airline is scaling up its operations this year and the number of weekly flights to 400 at the start of summer schedule from 317. It has added new connections to Srinagar, Jammu and Kochi.  

While announcing new flights last month, Phee Teik Yeoh, chief executive officer of Vistara, said, “With growing market presence and phenomenal customer uptake, we plan to double our domestic capacity this year by offering more flights, destinations and increased frequencies to our growing loyal customer base.”