Open skies fail to thrill western carriers

BANGALORE: Like every year, the government is considering throwing open its skies to foreign carriers between November and February this year, too. But, not every overseas carrier is thrilled about the opportunity.

This is because some international sectors already have capacities more than the current market growth, so carriers would wait for the excess capacity to fill up before they take a call on upping their flight frequency.

Another reason is that route rationalisation on a medium-haul flight is easier than long-haul flights.

Also, the international traffic into and out of India is skewed towards the Middle East and South East Asia. According to figures available with Amedeus, around 40% of the overseas traffic is into the Middle East, 35% into South East Asia and the remaining 25% is to Europe and the US.

Ankur Bhatia, managing director, Amedeus India, feels the open skies opportunity during the peak season this year would be mainly utilised on the Middle and South East Asian sectors.

“Over the last two years, sectors like India-UK, and even some European and the US sectors have grown more than three to four times. This has led to capacity overtaking the market growth, which has resulted in price war on these sectors. So, we may not see many flights being added on these routes. This year, I believe, the action will be concentrated on the Gulf, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and other South East Asian destinations,” says Bhatia.

British Airways alone operates 42 flghts per week from five locations in India, but it has no plans of adding any extra capacity except for another daily flight from Bangalore in October.

“I won’t say there is saturation on the India-UK route… there is always scope for more. But we won’t be adding any more flights except for the one from Bangalore,” says a BA spokesperson.

Unlike BA, though, UAE budget carrier Air Arabia is very excited at the prospect of the four-month open skies. Last year, it had operated two flights a day from Mumbai instead of one during the open skies period.

“We will definite increase our flight frequency as the air traffic shoots up drastically during this period because many expatriates come home for Christmas and News Year’s holiday,” says Rohit Ramachandran, Air Arabia’s India manager.

Air Arabia, which currently operates 25 flights per week from Mumbai, Jaipur, Cochin and Nagpur, witnesses a jump in its inbound (into India) traffic between December 15 and December 28, while the outbound traffic shoots up between January 1 and January 13.

Another UAE carrier, Etihad Airways, which has 10 flights per week (seven to Mumbai and three to Delhi) to India, is also jumping at the opportunity. “It is a very big opportunity. Last year, we could not add more frequency because of limited fleet, but this year, if the government permits, we have our plan in place to increase both frequency and aircraft capacity on most routes,” says Neerja Bhatia, area manager, Etihad Airways.

Austrian Airlines, which operates 12 flights a week in India from Mumbai and Delhi, is planning to increase its flight frequency to Mumbai from five per week to seven per week in January.