Analysis: SpiceJet to launch Delhi-Macau

by Vinay Bhaskara

A report in the Macau Business Daily states that Gurgaon based low cost carrier (LCC) SpiceJet is planning on launching nonstop flights between Delhi and Macau. SpiceJet has already won approval from the Indian government to launch Delhi-Macau, likely using Boeing 737 equipment. But it has not yet filed for approval from the Macau government. A Macau airport statesman had this to say about a potential SpiceJet application:

We have been aware of communications [about the route] between the Macau International Airport Company Ltd and the airline. SpiceJet had previously contacted us to obtain some initial information on the application procedures, which is a common practice for any interested airlines.

No airline currently serves Macau nonstop from India. The current bilateral air service agreement (ASA) between India and Macau allows each side's airline to operate up 600 seats per week with 2 return flights per week. However, both governments have agreed in principle to negotiate an expansion of the ASA later this year.

Macau, China's largest gambling center in the vein of Las Vegas in the United States, is an important and growing leisure destination for the increasingly affluent Indian upper middle class, and India's wealthy. However, demand for Macau is more concentrated in Bangalore and Mumbai than in Delhi, which may bode poorly for SpiceJet's chances on the route. The Macau international market is currently dominated by flag carrier Air Macau, a subsidiary of China's national carrier Air China, who serves 22 destinations on a fleet of 15 aircraft.

If the reports are true, it would mark just the latest step in SpiceJet's international growth track. The carrier now serves five international destinations from Delhi (Dubai, Guangzhou, Kabul, Kathmandu, and Riyadh) with 32 flights per week. Overall, SpiceJet serves nine international destinations (the aforementioned five plus Colombo, Muscat, Sharjah, and Male) with 87 flights per week. And along with the regional operation using Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 turboprops, the international growth has been an important contributor to SpiceJet's swing to profitability.

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SpiceJet to commence Pune Sharjah flights

by Vinay Bhaskara

New Delhi-based low fare carrier SpiceJet, is launching direct flights between Pune and Sharjah from September 21, 2013. The airline will deploy its Boeing 737-800 which seats 189 passengers in a single class configuration.

SG051 departs Pune 22:30 on Mondays, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturdays and arrives Sharjah 00:25+1
SG052 departs Sharjah 01:25 on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Sundays and arrives Pune 06:00

SpiceJet is offering an introductory fare of Rs 6,499/- one way all inclusive on this route. For full information and terms and conditions visit www.spicejet.com.

Pune is the third Indian destination to connect with Sharjah on SpiceJet network. SpiceJet already serves Sharjah with three flights per week from Lucknow and three flights per week from Varanasi. The airline also operates four daily flights to Dubai from Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Kochi.

International operations have become an increasingly large component in SpiceJet's operations as the carrier deals with heavy competition in the domestic sphere from low cost rivals like IndiGo, GoAir, and Jet Airways subsidiary JetKonnect.

The carrier now serves eight international destinations, Sharjah, Riyadh, Guangzhou, Kabul, Kathmandu, Dubai, Male, and Colombo, with a ninth, Muscat coming on-line a week from now when the airline will commence Ahmedabad Muscat flights. Read about that service here.

The growth in international operations helped contribute to a Rs.55 Crore profit for SpiceJet in the first quarter of fiscal year 2014.

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Air India has a one week low air fares sale to international destinations

Following in the footsteps of most international airlines, offering special fares ex-India, national carrier Air India, today announced, it is offering low fares for the lean season which commences from the middle of January.

The scheme is valid for immediate out-bound travel to the Far East and Near East, and from 21 January 2013 onwards for the USA, UK, Europe and UAE sectors.

The sale is open for one week from December 10 through 16, 2012.

Some of the fares under the scheme are:

• USA - New York JFK, Newark, and Chicago : Rs 51,999
• UK - London Heathrow : Rs 40,999
• Europe - Frankfurt and Paris CDG : Rs 35,999
• UAE - Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah : Rs 15,999
• Far East Seoul Incheon, Osaka Kansai and Tokyo Narita : 34,999
• Near East Hong Kong, Shanghai Pudong and Singapore : 17,999

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SpiceJet to commence Dubai flights from Mumbai and Delhi

After almost two years after it commenced international flights, low fare carrier SpiceJet is expanding its destination portfolio by adding Dubai.

The airline will commence daily flights from Delhi and Mumbai to Dubai later this month from June 25th. The flights will be operated by narrow body Boeing 737-800 aircraft and SpiceJet has announced a special inaugural fare of Rs. 4,777 excluding taxes.

SpiceJet made its international debut with the launch of its first international flight from New Delhi to Nepal's capital Kathmandu, on October 7, 2010 and soon followed with flights from Chennai to the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, on October 9, 2010.

The Dubai route will be operated by one aircraft, and thanks to an intelligent schedule, will afford the airline a high utilisation time.

SG011 departs Delhi 11:55, arrives Dubai 13:45.
SG014 departs Dubai 14:45, arrives Mumbai 19:15.
SG013 departs Mumbai 20:30, arrives Dubai 21:55.
SG012 departs Dubai 23:10, arrives Delhi 04:05 the next morning.

SpiceJet indicates it has received all the required regulatory/government approvals from concerned authorities in India as well as from Dubai, United Arab Emirates to launch its services and has put tickets on sale via its website.

SpiceJet benefits from government policy
As the Tier I domestic market began to saturate, domestic carriers started looking to fly overseas. International flights allowed for increased aircraft utilisation as most of them were overnight when domestic demand was low. India's notoriously high fuel prices are cheaper for international flights, and overseas prices are even lower.

However, the Indian government, in a myopic policy to protect ailing national carrier Air India, gave permissions to private domestic carriers very sparingly.

While low fare competitor IndiGo continued on an all jet fleet expansion and focussed on international flights and taking market share from Kingfisher Airlines, for the last year, SpiceJet focussed on the domestic market.

The airline acquired seven new Bombardier Q400 turbo-props for increase connectivity to Tier II and Tier III cities which do not have runways long enough to support jet aircraft. The airline currently operates Q400's to Aurangabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Calicut, Chennai, Goa, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Madurai, Mangalore, Rajahmundry, Tirupati, Trichy, Trivandrum, Tuticorin, Vijayawada, and Vizag, and is committed to increase its fleet to 15 Q400s by this year end.

SpiceJet is now benefitting by the recent broadening of thinking at the ministry of civil aviation which has relaxed the policy of over-protecting Air India, and opened up international routes to all Indian carriers, since Air India was unable to utilise all the available bi-lateral capacities, and foreign carriers, especially Emirates airline, have begun to dominate the Indian foreign travel market.

SpiceJet Chief Executive Officer Neil Mills said

"The Government of India has taken substantial and positive steps to open the market and allowing private carriers to connect with new international destinations. To leverage the opportunity and offer quality services at affordable price to our guests, we are pleased to announce the launch of flights to Dubai with more exciting destinations coming soon."

For now SpiceJet has a strong domestic Tier II and Tier III city network free from significant competition, and is can benefit from expansion on the international side as well.

Yet, while Dubai is the most popular destination from India, it is also the most competitive. All carriers who have operational permissions, Emirates, flyDubai and Air Arabia (from the Emirates), Air India, Air India Express, and IndiGo (from India), operate flights.

It will be interesting to see how SpiceJet fares on this highly competitive, yet highly lucrative route.

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Middle East Loses its Luster for India's Airlines

Will the majority of future of India-Gulf flights go through Dubai?

The first 9 months of 2012 will see a major re-shuffling by India’s airlines on the heavily trafficked India-Gulf sector, as airlines respond to higher fuel prices and a poor regulatory environment, and Air India continues to re-align its network strategy.

Air India will be enacting the most significant changes, primarily in Dammam. The third city of Saudi Arabia has a huge Indian population to work in the numerous oil fields and ancillary industries that dot the world’s most oil-rich region, Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. Despite this large traffic base, traffic from Dammam is mostly junk-yield VFR travel, especially for a carrier of Air India’s (non-existent) caliber, which is unsustainable for Air India in the face of rising costs and fuel prices. Thus Air India has announced a consolidation of Dammam services to its primary hub at Delhi. Dammam-Delhi will be served daily with an A319, replacing the current twice weekly service with Boeing 777-300ER. However, more than half of Air India’s remaining Dammam flights will all be cancelled, including Mumbai-Dammam. Air India has had direct flights between Mumbai and Dammam since the 1960s, and the end of this route is indicative of Air India’s continual shift towards a Delhi-centric airline since the decision was made to turn India’s capital into Air India’s primary hub in 2009. Along with the thrice weekly A320 service from Mumbai, current 4 weekly Hyderabad-Dammam A320 service will also be cancelled. Daily tag on service Sharjah-Dammam (linked to Varanasi and Lucknow flights) is cancelled as well. Dammam will continue to be served from Kozhikode and Trivandrum.

Meanwhile, other notable changes include the addition of a Bahrain tag to daily Delhi-Abu Dhabi services, which represents a return for Air India to Bahrain after the destination had been previously given over entirely to Air India’s low cost wing Air India Express. 2nd Daily Mumbai-Dubai flight will be re-instated with Airbus A330-200 equipment, enabled by substitution of 777-300ER for A330-200 on 7 weekly Mubai/Delhi-Jeddah frequencies (3 ex-Delhi, 4 ex-Mumbai). This 777-300ER meanwhile, is freed up by substitution of 747-400 and A320 family for 777-300ER on select Kerela-Gulf, as well as the removal of 777-300ER from Delhi-Dubai daily services in favor of Airbus A321. A full catalogue of Air India’s Middle East changes can be found at the bottom of this post, courtesy of airlineroute.net.

India’s largest private carrier Jet Airways, meanwhile, has been more muted in its response to the rising fuel prices and increased competition, but it is of course much smaller than Air India to and from the Gulf. Apparently seizing on the same trends as Air India, Jet Airways has announced a temporary reduction in many Kerala-Gulf sectors from daily to 5 weekly. The routes affected are from Trivandrum to Sharjah and Muscat, and Cochin to Muscat and Doha. On Kerala-Gulf sectors, the majority of the traffic is considered VFR or visiting family and relatives, with a smaller tourist component, and very limited business traffic. This breakdown is very consistent with variance in traffic across the various days of the week, meaning that it is not necessary for Jet to maintain services every day of the week. Jet currently has reduced service only till the end of March, but we feel that it would be prudent for them to extend these reductions further in order to boost profitability.

More troubling is Jet Airways’ subsequent addition of 4 weekly Delhi-Dammam services from mid March 2012 (17th March to be exact) using Boeing 737-800 equipment. Considering that Air India will be consolidating to the same route later in 2012, does it really make sense for Jet Airways to go head to head with Air India on a yield-limited sector? Moreover, Air India is ending Mumbai-Dammam, and Jet Airways is perhaps strongest in Mumbai. It might be more effective for Jet to target the limited business and high yield leisure traffic between Mumbai and Dammam as opposed to splitting a smaller full service market with an irrational pricing agent such as Air India. The schedules for Jet Airways Delhi-Dammam can also be found at the bottom of this story, once again courtesy of the excellent airlineroute.net blog.

Dealing with its own fiscal and operational issues, India’s third full service carrier Kingfisher has cut its Gulf operation down to almost nothing; 3 daily flights to Dubai (one each from Bangalore, Delhi, and Mumbai). Kingfisher had once operated to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf destinations as well, and the drawdown in India-Gulf mirrors Kingfisher’s overall capacity pull down, which has seen the carrier slash more than half of its capacity down to a level of around 200 flights per day. Neither GoAir nor SpiceJet operates to the Gulf (though the latter might begin to do so soon as domestic avenues for growth dry up), but the third Low Cost Carrier (LCC) of India, IndiGo is likely to add further flights to the Gulf, as it evolves towards a model of around 20% capacity deployment abroad, and adds frequencies later this year. Muscat was already mentioned as a potential destination, and further destinations are likely to complement the carrier’s existing Dubai service. Only Saudi Arabia is fully saturated under current the current bilateral agreement, so IndiGo’s possibilities are virtually endless.

Even amongst India’s full service carriers, the trend for Gulf flights is to use their LCC wings as the primary tool. Air India Express has already taken over many non Mumbai/Delhi flights to the Gulf (excluding Saudi Arabia b/c of the bilateral), and indeed Air India Express’ lower costs and more efficient 737-800 aircraft are more suitable for the VFR heavy Gulf Sectors. Jet must first integrate its Jet Konnect and JetLite brands before considering international expansion, but they too can use an LCC wing effectively to carve out a niche in this huge market. Gulf based LCCs are expanding even more exuberantly than Indian ones, with carriers such as FlyDubai adding capacity to India at exponential rates.

At the same time, the full service market between India and the Gulf has been all but ceded to airlines on the Gulf end. Emirates has, for the most part, saturated its allotted capacity, but Etihad, Turkish Airlines, and Qatar Airways to a lesser extent, all have room for expansion. Even secondary carriers such as Gulf Air are sending their most up-to-date premium products, with Gulf Air substituting its new amenity-filled A321s onto their Mumbai and Delhi routes. Whether or not government malfeasance is at the root of this imbalance, the future of Gulf service on India’s airlines increasing appears to be of the no-frills variety.

Schedule Changes

Air India Summer 2012 Middle East Changes

Abu Dhabi / Bahrain

Delhi – Bahrain – Abu Dhabi – Delhi Abu Dhabi service on outbound operates via Bahrain, where AI is resuming operation
AI941 DEL1745 – 1915BAH2015 – 2225AUH 320 D
AI940 BAH2015 – 2225AUH0005+1 – 0515+1DEL 320 D

Mumbai – Abu Dhabi Airbus A319 replaces A320, Daily service

Dammam / Sharjah

Delhi – Dammam Service changes from 2 weekly 777-300ER to Daily A319. Operational schedule moves from morning/noon to red-eye.
AI913 DEL0810 – 1010DMM 77W 37 -24MAR12
AI913 DEL0130 – 0345DMM 319 D 25MAR12-

AI912 DMM1250 – 1855DEL 77W 37 -24MAR12
AI912 DMM0445 – 1115DEL 319 D 25MAR12-

Amritsar – Sharjah – Dammam Sharjah – Dammam sector cancelled. Service to Sharjah remains at 4 weekly with schedule changes on return flight and will originate to/from Delhi

Hyderabad – Dammam 4 weekly A320 service cancelled

Lucknow – Sharjah – Dammam Sharjah – Dammam sector cancelled. Service to Sharjah remains at 3 weekly with schedule changes on return flight and will originate to/from Delhi

Mumbai – Dammam 3 weekly A320 service cancelled

Dubai

Delhi – Dubai AI995/996 Airbus A321 replaces 777-200LR/-300ER
Kozhikode – Dubai Airbus A321 replaces A320, Daily service
Mumbai – Dubai 2nd Daily service restored with A330-200
AI957 BOM1445 – 1605DXB 332 D
AI983 BOM2030 – 2155DXB 321 D

AI956 DXB1710 – 2130BOM 332 D
AI984 DXB2340 – 0405+1BOM 321 D

Jeddah (Previously reported on this site)

Delhi – Jeddah Boeing 777-300ER replaces A330-200, 3 weekly
Mumbai – Jeddah Boeing 777-300ER replaces A330-200, 4 weekly

Muscat

Delhi – Muscat Airbus A319 replaces A320/321, Daily service

Riyadh

Delhi – Riyadh Introduction of 3rd weekly service with Boeing 777-200LR
AI925 DEL1525 – 1730RUH 77W 16
AI925 DEL2010 – 2215RUH 77L 4

AI924 RUH0710 – 1355DEL 77W 16
AI924 RUH2330 – 0615+1DEL 77L 4

Mumbai – Riyadh AI927/920 (Day 24 from BOM, Day 35 from RUH) operates with 747-400, replaces 777-300ER

Thiruvananthapuram – Kochi – Riyadh Boeing 747-400 replaces 777-300ER, 2 weekly

Jet Airways Delhi-Dammam Schedules

Jet Airways from 17MAR12 is starting 4 weekly service on Delhi – Dammam route, on board Boeing 737-800 aircraft. The airline already operates Daily Mumbai – Dammam service.

Schedule from 25MAR12:

9W568 DEL2000 – 2150DMM 73H x245
9W567 DMM2250 – 0530+1DEL 73H x245

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Surveillance video footage of Sudan Air Boeing 707 crash at Sharjah

Gulf television has broadcast surveillance video footage of the Azza Transport Boeing 707-300 freighter, registration ST-AKW which crashed at Sharjah while performing freight flight SD-2241 from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates to Khartoum in Sudan on Wednesday October 21.

The video shows the 707 climb out normally though the actual lift-off is out of view 23 seconds in video). A large part appears to have fallen off the aircraft 11 seconds after the airplace climbs out of view (around 38 seconds in to video). The place re-appears in to view (around 54 seconds in to video) in a nearly 90 degree right bank i.e. wings vertical to the earth, before impacting in to the ground.



Hat tip to Simon Hradecky at AVHerald.

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Sharjah airport shut down after Sudanese Boeing 707 crashes

News reports are indicating that a Sudanese Boeing 707 cargo plane with six persons on board crashed and burned on take-off from Sharjah International Airport (IATA:SHJ, ICAO:OMSJ) in the United Arab Emirates around 15:50 local. The Boeing 707 crashed about two kilometres from the airport soon after taking off from Sharjah to Khartoum, the Sudanese capital.

Eye witnesses say the airplane veered sharply to the right after take-off and flipped before crashing a few miles past the runway. The airport is currently closed.

View images of the crash here and here.

Officials have not disclosed the name of the airline involved, but the airport's website had listed a Sudan Southern Air flight SOO951 scheduled to depart at 15:30.

Gulf News is reporting that Khaled Al Qassimi, director of civil aviation at Sharjah airport, said rescue personnel haven't so far found any of the crew. Mr. Al Qassimi is also reported to have said "The place is contained. All the fires are extinguished," "we are the picking up bits and pieces for the investigation."

The shut down of Sharjah airport has left low cost carrier Air Arabia scrambling for alternate airports and runways for its flights.

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Air Arabia commences Sharjah Goa service

Low cost carrier Air Arabia has launched its Sharjah, UAE to Dabolim, Goa, India, three times a week service. Goa is the 13th destination in India after Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Jaipur, Kochi, Kozhikode, Mumbai, Nagpur, Thiruvanathapuram and Hyderabad.

The schedule is :
Depart Sharjah Tue, Thu, Sat at 00:25 arrive Goa at 05:05
Depart Goa Tue, Thu, Sat at 05:50 arrive Sharjah at 7:35 AM.

Air Arabia is offering fares starting at Rs 3,653/ from Goa to Sharjah, excluding taxes and other surcharges. For full details visit the airline's website.

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