Bangalore: India’s largest domestic carrier IndiGo is looking to go all out on it’s competition by aggressively adding new flights to its operations. Shortly after its announcement of a slew of new flights from Vizag, the home airport of civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju, another 16 more flights connecting eight destinations have been announced by the carrier.

By September 1st, the carrier will offer 2 more daily non-stop flights between Bangalore and Kochi, it’s 6th daily non-stop flight between Bangalore and Kolkata, its 7th daily non-stop flight between Bangalore and Hyderabad, first daily flight between Kochi and Kolkata via Bangalore, second daily flight between Kochi and Hyderabad via Bangalore, second daily non-stop between Bangalore and Goa, second daily non-stop between Bangalore and Trivandrum, new daily non-stops between Bangalore-Chandigarh and Chandigarh-Srinagar.

With this, IndiGo has expanded its fleet to 81 Airbus A320’s and is expanding at the rate of 1 aircraft per month. Due to the lack of a turbo-prop capable of short-field landing, IndiGo cannot operate to some of the smaller cities like Hubli etc., which do not have runways long enough to cater to jets and therefore the airline is operating multiple frequencies on many routes. This is posing a challenge to the airline in maintaining passenger load factors, especially on mid-day flights.

The new focus on Bangalore by IndiGo and other Indian carriers like Jet Airways and SpiceJet is driven by the competition with a new entrant – AirAsia India. The Tony Fernandes promoted carrier currently uses Bangalore as its hub and flies to Goa, Kochi and Chennai. AirAsia will soon commence services to Chandigarh and Jaipur and hence IndiGo is commencing flights before the new challenger gets its second aircraft with which it will expand its schedule. 

AirAsia has countered with aggressive fares ahead of its planned launch. However, IndiGo has not announced any drastic drops in fares. While the price wars may benefit the customers short term, in the long run, it will have a devastating impact on the airline industry, feel the experts.

(With inputs from Bangalore Aviation)