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On October 19, at the peak of this year’s Diwali rush, flights on the Delhi-Mumbai sector were completely sold out. The festival period leading up to Christmas and New Year may see a similar situation, with most domestic airlines planning to operate fewer flights, as over 75 planes of major carriers are grounded due to engine supply or maintenance issues.
Airlines have scheduled fewer flights on not just the busy Delhi-Mumbai route, but also on other key domestic routes such as Delhi-Goa, Delhi-Srinagar, Hyderabad-Bengaluru, and Delhi-Patna in December.
The capacity crunch, coupled with high fuel prices due to the Russia-Ukraine war, has also led to airfares shooting up on these routes to anywhere between 13.7 per cent and 155.6 per cent for December, according to the data provided by travel portal ixigo.
On November 1, aviation consultancy firm CAPA had said more than 75 planes of Indian carriers, which account for 10-12 per cent of the Indian fleet, were grounded due to maintenance and engine-related issues.
At 18,048 flights per week, India’s six major carriers – IndiGo, Go First, SpiceJet, Vistara, Air India, and AirAsia India – plan to cumulatively operate 6.4 per cent fewer flights in December 2022 compared to the year-ago period, according to the data from aviation analytics company Cirium.
Flights to and from Goa, India’s top destination for Christmas and New Year celebrations, have gone down by 10.7 per cent this December.
More than 40 per cent of Go First’s aircraft fleet is currently grounded due to a delay in the supply of engines by US-based Pratt and Whitney and its impact can be seen on the carrier’s schedule. At 1,229 domestic flights per week, the airline plans to operate 44.7 per cent fewer services in December.
On the Delhi-Mumbai route, Go First is scheduled to operate 92 weekly flights in December, as compared to 122 weekly flights in December 2021. On the Delhi-Srinagar route, the airline has reduced its flights by 36.2 per cent for the month. On the Delhi-Kolkata route, it has halved the number of its flights to 14 for December.
“Apart from geopolitical tensions impacting airfares, capacity deployment is a key issue impacting the industry right now. Airlines are facing supply chain issues due to a shortage of spare engines and parts,” Aloke Bajpai, Group CEO and co-founder, ixigo, said.
IndiGo, with 30-odd planes grounded due to engine supply issues, is scheduled to operate 0.3 per cent fewer flights (10,255 weekly flights) in December, the data showed. On top routes such as Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Srinagar and Delhi-Goa, the number of flights in December this year have been cut back by about 5.9 per cent, 40.2 per cent, and 11.2 per cent, respectively.
IndiGo and Go First did not respond to queries sent by this newspaper.
Bajpai said smaller airlines had not added capacity as fast as they were doing before the Covid-19 pandemic struck. “Hence, there are choke points on certain routes. Recently, we saw the Mumbai-Delhi route sold out during the Diwali rush. This kind of demand is expected around the festival period, and if there had been more capacity addition, we would have sustained fares that were lower and fulfilled greater demand,” he added.
Financially beleaguered SpiceJet is scheduled to operate 1,663 weekly domestic flights in December, a reduction of 26.1 per cent year-on-year. The airline has reduced flights on routes such as Delhi-Mumbai (25 per cent fewer), Delhi-Srinagar (20.8 per cent fewer), and Bengaluru-Kolkata (51.7 per cent fewer), according to Cirium’s data. In fact, the airline has not scheduled any flights on Hyderabad-Bengaluru, Kolkata-Guwahati, and Hyderabad-Chennai routes this December.
“While supply chain issues have affected the availability of some aircraft, our flights are constantly increasing with each aircraft addition. Seven Boeing aircraft have been added to the fleet in the last one month,” a SpiceJet spokesperson said.
About the high fares in December this year, the spokesperson said “fares are a function of demand and supply” and that SpiceJet’s fares were either comparable or much lower than what were being charged by other airlines.
Among India’s six major carriers, Vistara will see the highest growth in domestic services in December. It is scheduled to operate 1,669 flights per week in December 2022, an 11.7 per cent jump year-on-year.
A spokesperson for Vistara said the high cost of jet fuel and the depreciating value of the rupee against the US dollar had put a lot of pressure on the bottom line of airlines. “The drop in airline capacity due to the ongoing supply chain disruption, especially at a time when demand is on an upswing, has also contributed to the rising airfares,” the spokesperson added.
The weekly domestic flights of Air India and AirAsia India have increased by 3.6 per cent and 11.2 per cent, respectively, in December 2022 compared to the same period last year. These two carriers did not respond to queries from Business Standard.
Bharatt Malik, senior vice-president, flights, Yatra.com, said, “Having seen a high demand in the summer season, we anticipate a similar increase during the festive holidays in December. Price surge is common during the festive seasons. We can expect the airfares to increase further as we move closer to Christmas and New Year.”
