IndiGo, Air India battle for Mumbai-Delhi route as Akasa doubles flights

It is the largest, most lucrative, and fastest-growing airline route in the country, even though most other routes are trimming their capacity. That is why the Mumbai-Delhi route is seeing a neck-and-neck battle between the country’s top two airlines — IndiGo and the Air India group (including Air India Express) — for supremacy in the skies. And a new kid on the block, Akasa Air, which has doubled its flights between April and September this year, is now emerging as a serious player on the route, pushing SpiceJet far behind.

Between April and September, data from Cirium shows that the Air India group is ahead of IndiGo, the country’s largest airline, with 4,768 scheduled flights compared to the latter’s 4,056.

But in terms of seats, IndiGo narrowly edged out the Air India group during the period. It held a 42.8 per cent market share with 892,190 seats, while the Air India group followed closely at 41.9 per cent share with 873,970 seats. The reason is that Air India, being a full-service carrier, has fewer seats on its aircraft than IndiGo, which is a low-cost carrier (LCC).

Akasa Air has now clearly emerged as the third-largest player on the route, ousting SpiceJet from that position. From April to September, its share of total seats on the route hit double digits for the first time, rising to 10.7 per cent from just 6 per cent during the same period last year. In contrast, SpiceJet is now far behind with only a 4.4 per cent share of the seat capacity this year.

The success of Akasa Air can be gauged from the fact that it has doubled the number of flights on the route to 1,176 in the same period.

What is interesting is that Akasa Air’s push is not limited only to the Mumbai-Delhi route. It is also pushing the pedal in the National Capital Region (NCR) as well as in Navi Mumbai by leveraging the new airports. Based on September seat capacity data, it is now the third-largest player on the Navi Mumbai-Delhi route with a 9.5 per cent share. On this route, IndiGo is the largest player, followed by Air India Express.

However, despite operating only 30 flights in September on the Mumbai-Noida route, Akasa Air captured 51.2 per cent of seat share, surpassing IndiGo.

The Mumbai-Delhi route has clearly bucked the national trend, where most of the top 10 domestic routes have seen a sharp fall in seat capacity because of increase in fares due to the West Asia crisis. In September, according to OAG data, the route saw a year-on-year (Y-o-Y) seat capacity growth of 13.9 per cent, with 677,300 seats on offer, which is also the highest number for any route in the country.

In contrast, the Bengaluru-Delhi route seat capacity fell by 1.8 per cent, Mumbai-Chennai by 8.5 per cent, and Mumbai-Hyderabad by 9.5 per cent.