Is the Indian ‘Middle Class’ of 300 Million ready to fly?

05 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by theflyingengineer in Airline, Aviation

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300, Aviation. Draft, Civil, DGCA, Growth, Million, Ministry, Passenger, Policy, population

Everyone today looks upto India as the next destination for growth. The Ministry of Civil Aviation, in its draft National Civil Aviation Policy, has captured the attention of everyone with the claim of a large middle class population, and the promise of certain reforms that should may better the ease of doing business.

We appreciate what the Ministry has done, is doing, and will do. But certain claims must be taken with a pinch of salt, must be questioned, and analysed, just to prevent over-optimism and to make room for realism. Like for example:

India is a 300 million strong population of middle class persons. The Ministry targets each of these 300 million to fly atleast once in their life. Pertinent questions: What is the definition of middle class? What subset can really afford air travel? These questions are important to prevent overcapacity in the Indian market based on optimism.
India targets 300 million domestic ticketing by 2022. That means, calendar year (CY) 2021 must end with 300 million domestic passengers in a single year. India will end CY 2015 with 80 million domestic passengers. What is the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) required to touch 300 million in CY 2021? Is this CAGR too high to achive? What do market leaders like Airbus say?

Today, we focus on these two issues, which form part of the Ministry’s vision, and we see if this is achievable. Our views on the Regional Connectivity Scheme and the 5/20 are ready, which we hope to release tomorrow. We will also be commenting on Scheduled Commuter Airlines (SCA) and Safety, and lightly touch upon Aeronautical ‘Make in India’, Aviation Education & Skill Development, and Air Navigation Services.

To read about the first two issues, please click here.

Vistara accepts its 8th Airbus A320

10 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by theflyingengineer in Airline, Vistara

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-8, A320, Airbus, Million, Network, New, Passenger, TTI, Vistara, VT

Vistara, which is on track with its fleet expansion plans, received its 8th Airbus A320-232SL at Toulouse. The aircraft, registered VT-TTI and bearing manufacturer serial number (MSN) 6785, is flying from Toulouse to Delhi via Ras Al Khaimah International Airport (UAE), where it will stop for refuelling before continuing to Delhi.

This 8th aircraft, along with the recently accepted 7th aircraft (VT-TTH) will allow the airline to either expand or strengthen its network. The timing of the airplanes is good – allowing the airline to build capacity for the peak season – the months of October, November, December, and part of January.

The airline’s 9th aircraft is expected in the month of November. The airline will close calendar year 2015 with a fleet of 9 aircraft.

Vistara today flies to 11 destinations, with the 12th destination – Varanasi – being added on the 21st of October. All 8 airplanes will be flying 21st October onwards.

The airline, with the 8th aircraft, has the capacity to deploy an additional ~6 flights. Offering a morning BLR-DEL and an evening DEL-BLR is important to raise the appeal of the airline’s network. It will not be surprising if the airline adds a pattern that flies BOM-BLR-DEL-XXX(perhaps VNS?)-DEL-BLR-BOM, to offer its customers better connectivity to BOM and DEL from BLR.

The airline, which has flown nearly 6,50,000 passengers till end September 2015, is expected to cross the 1 million passenger mark by December 31st, 2015, considering the peak season and the addition of capacity with three new airplanes.

1 Million at Toulouse

22 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by theflyingengineer in General Aviation Interest

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Engineer, Flying, Milestone, Million, the, Views

Last week, at the same time that I was visiting the Airbus A330 and A380 final assembly lines (FALs) at Toulouse (as part of my Aerospace and Aviation MBA program, which also included a visit to the ATR FAL) , the site “The Flying Engineer” crossed an important milestone.

This milestone is significant considering the audience that the website caters to. It started by catering to serious aviation enthusiasts, pilots, and engineers. Along the way, realisation dawned that it isn’t the aircraft that makes an airline successful. It’s how the aircraft is used that makes the airline successful.

This realisation made The Flying Engineer broaden, and eventually shift focus from pure technical to airline commercials and operations. How is it that in the same country a few airlines are profit making while the rest are loss making? How is it that one aircraft that is profitable for one airline in one part of the world is loss making for another airline?

It boils down to management – the depth of management. Analyses – of airlines’ performance and the mindset of the management and/or promoters is key to understanding the future of the airline.

The audience base has grown to include airline heads, promoters, aircraft manufacturers, and lessors.

With such a niche audience base, and serious insightful content that puts most to sleep, views are limited, and crossing 1 million views in 4 years is a significant milestone. The country generating the highest views are the United States of America and India. UK, Canada, France and Germany make it to the top six.

I thank you all for your support.

AirAsia India Flies 1 Million Passengers, Vistara approaches Half Millionth passenger milestone

10 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by theflyingengineer in AirAsia India, Vistara

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Air, Asia, flown, half, India, Million, One, Operations, Passengers, SIA, tata, Vistara, year

AirAsia India today (August 10th 2015) announced that the airline hit “the 1 million guests flown mark a little while back”. The Flying Engineer had forecasted in June 2015 that the airline will fly its millionth passenger on or around August 5th. It is likely that the airline may have flown its millionth passenger around the forecasted date.

Interestingly, the CEO of AirAsia India had told The Hindu Business Line in May 2015 that the airline will fly its millionth passenger before June 12th 2015 (first anniversary of operations), and later had told Forbes India in July 2015 that the airline will fly its millionth passenger in July 2015.

Among all airlines to have started operations with mainline jets (Airbus A320 or Boeing 737 aircraft), AirAsia India’s growth (in terms of passengers flown) has been better than only GoAir’s. While GoAir’s average aircraft fleet in the first year of operations was higher than AirAsia India’s, but flew with poor load factors.

Air Deccan is not considered as the airline started operations in October 2003 with 48 seat ATR-42 aircraft and inducted its first Airbus A320 only in July 2004 – 9 months after starting operations.

Until the issue of flying international is resolved, AirAsia India may induct just one other Airbus A320 into its fleet by the end of the calendar year 2015, taking the total fleet size to 6. Vistara will however induct 3 more to take the total fleet size to 9 aircraft by the end of the calendar year.

Vistara’s total passengers flown at the end of the fifth full month of operations (June) is slightly better than what Kingfisher flew in the corresponding period.

Vistara may have flown close to 450,000 passengers towards the end of July 2015, since start of operations. The airline is expected to fly its 500,000th (half millionth) passenger during the second or third week of August 2015.

AirAsia India increases aircraft utilisation

27 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by theflyingengineer in AirAsia India

≈ 1 Comment

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15, 20, Air, Around, Asia, Bangalore, Delhi, hours, India, Million, minutes, Passenger, time, Turn, utilisation

One of AirAsia India’s aircraft utilisation has increased to one of the highest in the country.
1 millionth passenger expected to be flown around August 5th.
Typical turn around time: 25 -30 minutes.

The airline, which started operations one year ago on June 12th, 2014, now operates a fleet of 5 aircraft from 2 hubs – Bangalore and Delhi. All of the airline’s present flights from Delhi are no less than 2 hours 20 minutes long. Such long flights ensure that the airplanes spend a larger fraction of the flight in air, resulting in higher aircraft utilisation.

One of the airline’s 5 aircraft rotations flies only 2:30hr flights. This rotation covers a Delhi-Bangalore return, and two Delhi-Goa returns. Together, the utilisation on this pattern totals to 15:10 hrs, which is 50 minutes short of the target that the airline had made public, but one of the highest in the country for all domestic operations.

Average utilisation is however at 12:19 hrs, and the minimum utilisation is 11:00hrs. The average turn-around time at the airline is 36 minutes, a figure that is 16 minutes higher than the target of 20 minutes. However, turn around periods of 25 minutes and 30 minutes account for 70% of all turnarounds. There are no turnarounds of 20 minutes. Refer graph below.

The airline recently added Imphal as a destination, raising the number of destinations to 10. The airline today flies 32 flights a day, deploying 5,760 seats a day and flying around 4,500 passengers daily. Till end May 2015, the airline had flown 716,000 passengers. The airline may fly its 1 millionth passenger on or around the 5th of August 2015.

The airline may add a third Cochin flight in the morning, to provide a well spread out thrice daily service to Cochin from Bangalore. When added, all airplanes will be flying at near maximum utilisation in their rotations. No further growth is possible with the existing fleet.

Aircraft between hubs may be swapped through the night flight I52227 DEL-BLR and I52228 BLR-DEL. Two rotations sync up at the right times to allow for a swap. Until a third Cochin is launched, the airline may use the morning flight I52221 DEL-BLR to swap airplanes.

Ideally, considering that Delhi base has higher aircraft utilisation, the airline may realise a higher fuel saving by deploying two winglet-equipped aircraft at Delhi rather than just one as is the case today. Winglets help realise greater savings on longer flights.

According to the AirAsia Group, AirAsia India, “Overall performance was better than expected with strong loads but is working on keeping costs under check.”

AirAsia India: The Million Passenger Question

20 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by theflyingengineer in AirAsia India

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AirAsia, India, Million, Passenger

AirAsia India is a wonderful airline, and has got a few things right. Their on board service is one of those.

As an airline, especially a start-up airline, making mistakes is inevitable. Falling short of projected growth plans and heavy flight cancellations and delays in certain months of the first year of operations are acceptable. Both these have happened to AirAsia India, and the industry understands. Of course, there are better examples, such as IndiGo, which has managed to play the game like no other.

The unacceptable part? Factually incorrect statements that can lower the overall credibility of the industry.

Here is an excerpt from the May 20 interview of the AirAsia India CEO, by Ashwini Phadnis, as published in The Hindu Business Line:

How many of the things planned initially have happened and how many have not?

We have done certain things we did not expect. We have flown close to a million passengers. By the time we complete our first year we would have flown more than a million passengers^[1]. No other airline in India has done that before in their first year of operations^[2]. We have done that with a skeleton fleet, meaning, we have utilised aircraft significantly.

We contest both claims [1] & [2], in the interest of factual correctness.

The graph on top (click to enlarge) shows the total number of passengers flown against the first twelve months of operations. All data is from the DGCA.

IndiGo, Kingfisher Airlines, SpiceJet, and Go Air started operations in the 2005-2006 timeframe. Within the first one year of operations, all airlines in consideration, with the exception of Go Air, carried in excess of 1 million passengers. IndiGo crossed the 2 million mark in the first year!

As of 31st March 2015, AirAsia India had carried 550,000 passengers. This means that the airline will need to carry 450,000 passengers to touch the 1 million mark by the end of June (AirAsia India started operations on 12th June, 2014). This means that the airline will need to carry on average 150,000 passengers in the months of April, May and June. Is this achievable?

Data for the month of April and May were not available at the time of writing this piece. Since April had no new flights, but had infact cut 4 – Bangalore- Chennai & back, the airline flew around 97,200 seats in April. With an assumed 82% load factor – their highest so far, the airline could have flown no more than 80,000 passengers in April.

66% of May was flown with 18 flights a day, which totals to approximately 65,000 seats. Effective 21st May, the airline will operate 8 new flights. For 33% of the month this totals to around 47,000 seats. IN total, May can fly only 112,000 seats. At a generous 90% load factor, this is 100,000 passengers.

In June, the airline will fly 28 flights a day, flying approximately 140000 seats a month. At 80% load factor, this will result in around 120,000 passengers being flown.

This means that AirAsia India will close its first year of operations with a maximum of 850,000 passengers, neither meeting nor crossing the 1 million mark.

We wish the airline all the very best for its northern hub operations.