AirAsia India Announces New Frequencies, Adds New Sector

Following the arrival of its sixth aircraft, AirAsia India announced extra frequencies on existing routes and was expected to announce a new sector from Delhi shortly afterwards.

The sixth aircraft

The airline's sixth Airbus A320, registered VT-APJ, was to be based at Delhi, as The Flying Engineer had suggested earlier.

New frequencies and a new sector

The Delhi to Goa and Delhi to Guwahati sectors each gained one more daily frequency. The expected new sector was Delhi to Visakhapatnam. The outbound flight, I5 2551, was to leave Delhi at 06:05 and depart Visakhapatnam on the return at 08:35.

From 17 November 2015, Delhi to Goa rose to three flights a day and Delhi to Guwahati to two a day.

One concern: the airline now had two Delhi to Goa departures (and returns) just 45 minutes apart, which could cannibalise each other, especially in off peak periods. The new Guwahati flight, on the other hand, gave Delhi passengers a practical same day return on one airline.

The aircraft pattern

One of the airline's three aircraft patterns was expected to be given over to the new flights. The aircraft on that pattern would fly Delhi to Visakhapatnam and back, then Delhi to Goa and back, then Delhi to Guwahati and back (DEL-VTZ-DEL-GOI-DEL-GAU-DEL), with a total block time of 14 hours 45 minutes.

Capacity

With the new aircraft and routes, the airline's capacity in available seat kilometres rose by 24% over the existing network. Seat capacity rose 17% to 7,200 seats a day, and daily flights increased from 34 to 40.

In the summer peak the airline had two aircraft on the ground for almost two months and paid the set up costs of four new stations: Delhi, Guwahati, Visakhapatnam and Imphal. For the winter peak it was opening no new stations, so there were no one time network costs.

At the time of writing, only the new Delhi to Goa and Delhi to Guwahati flights were on sale. The Delhi to Visakhapatnam flights had not yet been announced or opened for booking.