Tata Airlines would restructure its routes, with Air India Express concentrating on tier 2 and 3 cities and Air India concentrating on hub-to-hub services.
According to Air India Express Managing Director Aloke Singh, the Tata Airlines Group airlines have begun to rationalize.
operate from tier two and three cities to hub airports, while the full-service carrier (FSC), Air India, operate on major
For example, Air India is the operator of the hub to hub Delhi Dubai route, yet Air India Express does not operate on it. However, the Goa-Dubai route, which Air
India no longer operates, is now run by Air India. According to Singh, the Delhi-Sharjah route is run by Air India Express rather than Tata Airlines Air India.
Examples in the domestic market include the Delhi-Mumbai route, which is run by the latter and not the former, and the Delhi-Ranchi line, which is run by Air India Express but not Air India.
Tata group airlines have started rationalising
However, the approach is “not cast in stone,” and both Air India and Air India Express will be present on some routes since there may be sufficient demand from various client categories to support the deployment of both a full-service and a low-cost offering.
“The regional short-haul international network and the metro to non-metro will be our main priorities. Once more, it will mostly be from tier two and tier three cities to locations in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, etc., Singh stated. He referred to tier two and tier three cities as the aviation market’s growth engines in India.
“In fact, metro to non-metro routes account for the largest portion of the domestic India market.That is the segment that is expanding the fastest, and I estimate it to be over 65 percent,” Singh stated.
Based on demand and route characteristics, the plan is a component of the Air India group’s efforts to create a consolidated network. Although the budget product is thought to be a better choice for connecting comparatively smaller airports with the hub airports, the Air India group is aiming to implement the full-service product on hub-to-hub and business routes. By connecting tier two and three airports with hub airports, Air India Express hopes to route passenger flows from major Indian airports to its parent airline’s long-haul services.
Beyond its historically robust India-Gulf services
Beyond its historically robust India-Gulf services, Air India Express wants to grow its global network. It is anticipated that the airline would soon begin operating flights to Bangkok and Phuket, Thailand, linking two Indian cities with Bangkok and one Indian city with Phuket. The cities in India for these routes have not yet been decided. In South Asia, Air India Express is also thinking about starting flights between India and Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. In addition to Thailand, the airline is also looking at Malaysia, Indonesia, and Cambodia in Southeast Asia. In the future, Hong Kong might even be taken into account. According to top company officials, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) nations, including Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, would also be considered in the future. Notably, since it began operating flights on those routes a few years ago, India’s biggest airline, IndiGo, has had strong traffic between India and the CIS nations.
