Indian carriers almost catch up with Emirates on the Dubai route

According to Cirium, between April and July this year Emirates controlled more than half the seat capacity of 2.3 million and 36 per cent of the 9,410 flights

The air route to Dubai is the busiest in India. And Indian carriers collectively have nearly bridged the gap in seat capacity between the two places with their rivals Emirates and low-cost flydubai, both of which are government-owned and have dominated this route.

According to Cirium, between April and July this year Emirates and flydubai controlled more than half the seat capacity of 2.3 million and 36 per cent of the 9,410 flights.

But Indian carriers -- Air India (which included Air India, Air India Express, and Vistara), IndiGo, and SpiceJet -- have nearly bridged the gap. These carriers offered 1.14 million seats in April-July as against the 1.16 million of Emirates/fly dubai.

 

The gap has been bridged primarily due to the government policy to freeze bilateral increase in capacity between India and Dubai. Last October Emirates made a pitch before the government to increase its weekly seat entitlement from 65,000 seats, which remains unchanged for a decade. It said such a move of freezing seats would only restrict capacity and force air fares to go up. But the Indian government has used the bilaterals to protect Indian carriers to exhaust their part of the entitlement, which is what they have done now.

However, the Indian carriers had more flights (5,977) than Emirates and fly dubai (3,433). That is because Emirates flies only wide-bodied aircraft and low-cost fly dubai has limited flights.

In contrast the bulk of the Indian carriers flying to Dubai are low-cost carriers, which include IndiGo, Air India Express, and SpiceJet. The Tata group, through the three carriers, has 550,536 seats, accounting for 23 per cent of the total.

But individually on top of the charts is IndiGo followed by Air India Express, Air India, SpiceJet, and Vistara.

Over 69 per cent of Indians travelling to Dubai on Emirates, analysts estimate, use it as a hub to fly to the United States (US) and Europe.

However, the bulk of the travellers on Indian carriers fly direct between the two countries. The freeze will also help Indian carriers like Air India to fly directly to the US and Europe rather than give up this business to West Asian carriers.

As regards the other UAE destination, Abu Dhabi, the story is different. Abu Dhabi carrier Etihad Airways, together with low-cost Air Arabia Abu Dhabi (with which it has a code share agreement to fly from various destinations from Abu Dhabi), dominated the route in April-July with nearly 70 per cent of the seat capacity of 1.1 million, which is half the size of India-Dubai.

Indian carriers have given much smaller offers only 356,065 seats, with IndiGo, the largest player, with 182,592 seats and a 15.4 per cent share, followed by the three carriers of the Tata group with 173,475.