Mounting losses have not dampened the expansion plans of domestic carriers. In November alone, private carriers have offered an additional 15,000 seats a day -- the highest ever increase in a month -- by deploying new aircraft, flying to new destinations, and increasing the frequency on various routes.
Air travellers now have over 1.2 lakh seats a day for grabs -- an increase of over 20 per cent in the last three months.
The number of seats being added is more than half of the seats offered by the second largest private carrier, Air Deccan, which has 26,000 seats a day.
Industry analysts said carriers had taken delivery of over 15 new aircraft this month, hoping to cash in on the coming peak season, always a good time to add capacity.
With little or no competition on new routes, at least 50 per cent of the fresh capacity was on such sectors, they added. However, many aviation executives said the expansion would have an adverse impact on carriers.
Said a senior SpiceJet executive, "Industry passenger load factor of 75 per cent would drop to around 70 per cent and margins would come under pressure once the peak season is over."
Air Deccan has introduced new sectors like Kandla and Bellari. It has also started services to Pathankot, a gateway to the northern-most regions of India.
Chennai-based Paramount Airways' Managing Director M Thiagarajan said, "We have introduced the Coimbatore-Hyderabad sector and increased frequency on the Chennai-Hyderabad route."
Kingfisher Airlines has doubled daily direct flights between Delhi and Hyderabad, besides introducing a daily service on Hyderabad-Bhubaneswar and Delhi-Bhubaneswar (via Hyderabad) routes. Vijay Mallya, its chairman and chief executive officer, said, "In November, the airline will introduce flights for Nagpur, Coimbatore, Varanasi, Jammu and Udaipur."
Budget airline GoAir has launched daily services on Chennai-Ahmedabad and Hyderabad-Delhi routes. An executive of SpiceJet, another budget airline, said, "The carrier is offering over 10,000 seats per day and it is covering 13 cities." Recently launched low-fare carrier IndiGo has introduced a daily service from Mumbai to Jaipur. It is also launching daily round-trip service from Delhi to Goa on November 25.
Even Indian Airlines is not to be left behind. It has started Tirupati-Delhi via Hyderabad daily service, in addition to a bi-weekly link from Bangalore to Bhubaneswar.
The high density Delhi-Mumbai sector will see the addition of the 11th flight, while a fourth flight has been introduced on the Delhi-Kolkata route. The carrier has also increased frequency on Kolkata-Bagdogra and Kolkata-Aizawal-Imphal routes, while its subsidiary Alliance Air has introduced tri-weekly Silchar-Agartala and bi-weekly Guwahati-Dimapur flights. The Delhi-Jodhpur-Udaipur-Mumbai flight will operate every day, against four flights a week earlier.
