AirAsia India Makes Delhi a Hub, 5th Aircraft Arrives from Malaysia

AirAsia India announced on 15 April 2015 that Delhi would be its second hub after Bangalore. Delhi would also be a base, while Bangalore stayed the home base.

If the airline started flying between Bangalore and Delhi, it would be its first Category I (Cat I) route under the route dispersal guidelines (RDG) then in force. Flying a Cat I route obliges an airline to put a minimum share of that capacity on Category II, IIA and III routes. Capacity is measured in available seat kilometres (ASKM). Each 180 seat flight between Bangalore and Delhi adds roughly 342,000 ASKM.

That made the choice of Delhi as a base very important.

The importance of Delhi

Category II routes were traditionally seen as loss making. They link the mainland to the north east, the far north, and the islands of Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar group, regions the ministry treated as neglected when it came to air links. Ten percent of Cat I capacity had to go on Cat II routes, soon to rise to 20 percent. Had AirAsia India flown to Port Blair from Chennai or Bangalore, this would have been easy to meet. Its A320s could not use the short strip at Agatti.

Category IIA routes connect airports within a neglected region, such as Jammu to Srinagar or Guwahati to Bagdogra. The south of India, where AirAsia India was based, had no Cat IIA routes. One percent of Cat I capacity had to go on these routes, soon to rise to 1.5 percent.

To serve a Cat I route along with Cat II and IIA routes, a hub in the north made more sense. All the routes AirAsia India flew at the time were Cat III routes.

Establish the route

With a Delhi hub, the airline could fly early morning Delhi to Bangalore flights mirrored by early morning Bangalore to Delhi flights, with similar pairs in the evening. That needed one A320 based at Delhi to start.

Under this plan each aircraft would fly at least two sectors a day on Bangalore to Delhi and back. Each flight was planned at 2 hours 45 minutes, so 5 hours 30 minutes of utilisation per aircraft on this city pair, leaving at most about 7 hours for other stations. The Flying Engineer expected three one way Bangalore to Delhi flights a day, at least two of them non stop.

Delhi flights were not expected before May 2015, and perhaps not before mid May.

Deploy Cat II and IIA capacity

Delhi to Jammu to Srinagar, Delhi to Guwahati to Bagdogra, or Delhi to Guwahati to Agartala could provide the Cat II and IIA capacity. Delhi, Jammu and Srinagar looked the most likely first set. With some creativity the airline could use its patterns to serve underserved routes, though the author chose not to suggest specific ones.

Open Vishakhapatnam as a destination

AirAsia India flew three aircraft at the time, and one of the three daily patterns had poor utilisation of just 7 hours 50 minutes. Two flights to Vishakhapatnam, as published in the DGCA Summer Schedule, could easily fit into that third pattern with small schedule changes.

The necessity: a 5th aircraft

Opening Delhi to Bangalore would need two more aircraft, one based at Bangalore and one at Delhi. In addition, under CAR Section 3, Air Transport Series C Part II, operators were given one year from the date of their permit to reach a fleet of five aircraft. AirAsia India secured its AOP on 7 May 2014, so a fifth aircraft was needed to meet the rule.

At about 11:00 IST on 15 April 2015, the fifth aircraft flew into Hyderabad from Kuala Lumpur. It was a used Malaysia AirAsia A320-216, 9M-AHU, without winglets and about 5.5 years old. It was the airline's second non winglet A320, after the seven year old aircraft unveiled on 21 March in the JRD Tata livery. Neither had yet started commercial flying for the airline.

The first three aircraft, VT-RED, VT-ATF and VT-ATB, had winglets. If the airline was careful about fuel burn, only those three would be used on Bangalore to Delhi.

Thanks to @ATCBLR on Twitter for posting the fifth aircraft's arrival.

A marked shift in strategy

A year earlier, CEO Mittu Chandilya had named Goa as the second hub, to come with the fourth aircraft, and had said the airline would stay away from Delhi and Mumbai.

The airline last flew Bangalore to Chennai on 31 March 2015.