IndiGo — ‘300 not out’

IndiGo, which has been significantly dominating the Indian carrier market, has chronicled another landmark. The budget carrier has touched a milestone of 300 aircraft strong fleet, it announced on January 6, 2023.

Speaking on the occasion, Pieter Elbers, Chief Executive Officer, IndiGo said, “We are excited to announce that our fleet size now stands at 300 aircraft, giving wings to our ambitions. The strong fleet will help us cater to emerging travel demands with the addition of capacity across domestic and international destination shores.”

At present, IndiGo’s fleet consists of the Airbus A320ceo & neo, the A321neo, and the ATR 72-600 aircraft. The no-frill carrier offers a capacity of 180 seats with its A320ceo fleet while the A320neo fleet comes with a seating capacity of 180 and 186. The airline also caters to the seating capacity of 222 and 232 with its A321 fleet while the ATR fleet that is mostly used for regional routes, has the seating capacity of 78.

“We have recently expanded operations across west, east, and north-east India as well as the middle east. We will strive to stay true to our promise of affordable fares, on-time performance, courteous and hassle-free service across a wide network,” Elbers added.

IndiGo has established itself to be amongst the fastest-growing low-cost carriers in the world. With its fleet of 300 aircraft, the airline also announced that it is operating over 1,700+ daily flights, connecting 76 domestic destinations and 26 international destinations. The carrier believes that the 300 aircraft strong fleet will help it in catering to the growing passenger volume, as Indian aviation marks recovery and growth in 2023.

With this feat, IndiGo has become the first Indian airline with this fleet size. After IndiGo, Air India has the second largest fleet size of 122 aircraft with 77 Airbus A320; 18 Boeing 777, 27 Boeing 787. Air India is followed by SpiceJet with a fleet size of 70 that includes 43 Boeing 737 and 28 Bombardier Q400 followed by Vistara having a fleet size of 59 that includes 51 Airbus A320, four Boeing 737 and three Boeing 787. Apart from these Go First has a fleet size of 58 aircraft followed by Air India Express (24) and Alliance Air with 22, according to knowindia.net

According to Statista.com, in 2021, globally, many airlines have over 300 aircraft fleet sizes including The Turkish Airlines with 312, Easyjet with 323, and Alaska Airlines with 330 aircraft. Other airline carriers with large fleet size include Air China at 444, China Eastern Airline at 581, China Southern Airlines at 626, Southwest Airlines at 734, Delta air lines at 781, and United airlines at 834. Currently, the largest fleet size in the world is that of American Airlines with over 900 aircraft. According to the carrier’s factsheet, at the end of 2022’s third quarter; American Airlines’ active Mainline Fleet was 908, active regional fleet 553 and 197 future deliveries were still listed.

“We are excited to announce that our fleet size now stands at 300 aircraft, giving wings to our ambitions. The strong fleet will help us cater to emerging travel demands with the addition of capacity across domestic and international destination shores.”
—Pieter Elbers, Chief Executive Officer, IndiGo

In a report released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the regulatory body shared the performance of domestic airlines for the year 2022. The report was prepared by analysing the traffic data submitted by various domestic airlines. Based on the report, Indigo carried 620.96 Lakhs passengers in 2022 and its market share was 56.2 per cent in 2022. The second highest market share after IndiGo was that of Vistara but even that was 9.2 per cent, way less than that of IndiGo and Vistara carried 101.89 Lakhs passengers, almost six times less than that of IndiGo. After IndiGo and Vistara, the third highest market share among the Indian airlines was of GoFirst with 99.51 per cent followed by SpiceJet at 97.08 per cent and then Air India with 96.04 per cent.

IndiGo has also been adding various new routes. It started this year, commencing operations from the New Goa International Airport, Mopa, North Goa. The operations commenced with a direct celebratory flight between Hyderabad and Goa making it the 76th domestic and 102nd overall destination in 6E network. IndiGo plans to operate 168 weekly flights between Mopa and 8 domestic destinations like Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Jaipur, and Ahmedabad right from the start at the first day of operations.

Recently on January 16, IndiGo announced a new exclusive flight between Jaipur and Jodhpur, effective February 2, 2023. The flight will operate four days a week. On January 13, IndiGo commenced exclusive flights between Kolhapur and Bengaluru. It also announced direct flights between Hubballi and Pune and commenced flights between Kochi and Raipur via Goa as well as direct flights between Pune and Dehradun.

On December 20, IndiGo had introduced exclusive flights between Bengaluru-Kolhapur and additional flights between Coimbatore-Kolhapur. In December IndiGo had launched 21 additional flights as part of its winter schedule for 2022-23. The operations commenced December 9, 2022 onwards for flights from Hyderabad and Kolkata to beach destinations like Port Blair, Kochi, and Goa respectively. These seasonal additions were introduced to cater to the increasing demand and improve accessibility in the region, the airline stated. “We are witnessing high traffic demand which is enabling the industry’s recovery. As beach destinations are in high demand from October to February, our winter schedule flights will add capacity and make travel affordable, while offering more options to customers,” said Vinay Malhotra, Head of Global Sales, IndiGo.

On December 5, IndiGo also announced 32 new connecting flights to Milan, Manchester, Birmingham, Rome, and Venice, effective December 7, 2022, through its codeshare partnership with Turkish Airlines. These new routes will offer more options and add capacity for customers travelling between India and Europe in the upcoming holiday season, stated the carrier.

IndiGo is also reportedly adding 16 special flights starting January 19, in a bid to meet increasing demand for air connectivity. The Indian operator is also set to add an additional 12 flights to its winter schedule, starting February 1, taking the total of new flights to 28. The Republic Day special flights are set to remain operational till the occasion.

Going forward, IndiGo is reportedly expecting two new ATR 72s, registered VT-IRG and VT-IRH, alongside two new Airbus A320neos as we expect a couple of Airbus A320neos. It’s also worth noting that the airline still awaits over 500 aircraft from Airbus.