AirAsia India, which has been slow in its growth owing to a primarily domestic-international network strategy that was thwarted by the unreasonable delay in lifting the 5/20 rule (a rule requiring an airline to fly international only after flying domestic for 5 years, and a minimum fleet size of 20 airplanes), received its 6th aircraft at Hyderabad’s Shamshabad airport at the MAS-GMR MRO facility.

The aircraft, bearing MSN 4346, previously flew for Indonesia AirAsia as PK-AXL. It is a non-winglet airplane, and is 5 years 4 months old.

It has now been re-registered to VT-APJ, as a tribute to late Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam.

This is AirAsia India’s third non-winglet airplane. This is also the fourth airplane to be dedicated to a person (living and dead) or a place. The other three are VT-ATF (Tony Fernandes), VT-JRT (JRD Tata) and VT-BLR (Bengaluru).

This is perhaps the last airplane the airline will induct in this calendar year – something we had mentioned earlier.

With this, AirAsia India will be adding capacity during the winter peak season. The airline may start operating new sectors or additional frequencies only towards mid-late November 2015.

Due to the late announcement of routes, some of the lowest airfares may be found on AirAsia’s network. While this is good for passengers, it may adversely impact the airline’s unit revenues.

The airline has however started offering via flights – Passengers from Delhi can fly to Imphal via Guwahati, something which the airline did not offer earlier. Via flights will help improve revenues at the airline – something we had mentioned earlier.

While total costs in the airline will rise with the induction of the 6th aircraft, unit costs are expected to slightly fall, which is good for the airline.

The 6th aircraft may be based at Delhi, and may connect the national capital to Visakhapatnam, among other frequency/route additions.