Air India adds capacity to East Asia Effective November 1, Air India goes double daily on Delhi Kuala Lumpur (currently served 10 weekly) From October 25, service goes daily on Delhi Seoul (ICN, currently served 6 weekly) AI 2384 DEL 1350 KUL 2200 AI 2386 DEL 2055 KUL 0500 (+1) AI 2385 KUL 0600 DEL 0915 AI 2387 KUL 2300 DEL 0220 Both daily flights on a320neo AI 312 DEL 0010 ICN 1030 AI 313 ICN 1205 DEL 1720 daily service on 2 class 788 @networkthoughts

Air India starts 3rd daily service on Delhi Colombo with the start of the winter season (October 25th). All 3 services are on A321 ceo aircraft. Mumbai Colombo maintained at 1 daily AI 277 DEL 0030 CMB 0410 AI 283 DEL 0715 CMB 1055 AI 281 DEL 1240 CMB 1605 AI 282 CMB 0510 DEL 0845 AI 284 CMB 1215 DEL 1550 AI 278 CMB 1705 DEL 2050 @networkthoughts

IndiGo is no longer offering on sale Bengaluru Salem and Hyderabad Salem from the start of the winter season (Oct 25th). In its place, Chennai Salem is offered 2 daily with ATR 72 aircraft 6E 7393 MAA 1100 SXV 1210 6E 7395 MAA 1540 SXV 1650 6E 7394 SXV 1230 MAA 1335 6E 7396 SXV 1710 MAA 1815 @networkthoughts

IndiGo moves daily service to Jabalpur, Hindon Ghaziabad and Vishakapatnam from Navi Mumbai (NMI) to Mumbai (BOM) airport from the start of the winter schedule (Oct 25th). Hubli service has moved to BOM earlier this month. Jharsaguda, Kannur and Madurai service, all 3 of which had started from Navi Mumbai is not resuming. Madurai & Kannur will be served from BOM @networkthoughts

Air India starts 2 way easy connect with Ahmedabad just like they did with Amritsar. DEL AMD service starts 25th October The Easy connect flights are bookable on the air India app : DEL - AMD & DEL - ATQ are only bookable with international origin itineraries whereas AMD DEL & ATQ DEL are bookable for domestic pax as well AI 1118 DEL 1140 AMD 1320 AI 1120 DEL 1640 AMD 1820 AI 1117 AMD 0815 DEL 1000 AI 1121 AMD 2020 DEL 2205 @networkthoughts

The Non UAE GCC network of Air India group in winter 26 Air India group will offer 228 weekly frequencies to the non UAE GCC countries this winter. In contrast to the UAE operation, this is more concentrated in the Malabar coast and Mumbai (BOM) offers the most frequency while Kozhikode (CCJ) has the widest breadth of destinations including Salalah (SLL) in Oman. Riyadh sees a reallocation of capacity with Air India offering a daily service from Delhi & Mumbai and IX offering connectivity from Lucknow, Kozhikode, Kannur, Bengaluru & Thiruvananthapuram. Bahrain & Dammam offer potential for increase given bilaterals (DMM is a free port) but the rest would be constrained by bilateral seat caps @networkthoughts

Air India group UAE operations in winter 26 Post the war related closures, AI & IX are restoring capacity to the UAE but from a more varied set of points including several new monopoly routes. The seasonal focus given the wedding season are markets in the north, west and central which are also new migration routes. All city pairs are on sale barring Amritsar Abu Dhabi & Mangalore Ras Al Khaimah - both of which are showing on Google flights but not yet available for purchase. Of course there is still 45+ days to the start of the new schedule and hence changes should be expected In all AI group will offer 325 weekly departures from the UAE to a staggering 22 Indian airports of which Delhi gets the most flights and seats. Interestingly of the 49 airport pairs on offer, 21 are monopoly routes with IX focusing on new albeit thin city pairs with no competition not just from Indian carriers but also Emirates, Etihad, Air Arabia etc @networkthoughts

Air India group domestic capacity additions at BOM for winter 26 Like in Delhi, Air India has added capacity on select Metro - non metro pairs in the winter schedule effective October 25th ✈️BOM IXC goes up to 24x weekly (currently 18 weekly) ✈️BOM JAI 47 weekly ✈️BOM IDR 3 daily (up from 2 daily) ✈️BOM NAG 4 daily (up from 2 daily, IX will fly 1x daily) ✈️BOM GOI upto 8 daily ✈️BOM JSA 1 daily new introduction Further changes possible @networkthoughts

Air India Express springs a surprise with 4 weekly Kochi Bangkok service in the winter schedule IX 476 COK 2215 BKK 0355 IX 475 BKK 0455 COK 0740 4 weekly service on Boeing 738 Flights start October 25 @networkthoughts

Air India adds capacity on Delhi - mini metro cities in winter schedule Air india group has started updating its winter domestic schedule with the following additions ✈️Delhi Srinagar 8x daily (last winter was 6x) ✈️Delhi Amritsar 8x daily (including 2 easy connect flights) ✈️Delhi Bhuj 2x daily (new morning departure) ✈️Delhi Raipur 4x daily (up from 3x daily last winter) ✈️Delhi Udaipur 4x daily (up from 3x daily last winter) ✈️Delhi Kochi 8x daily (up from 7x daily) ✈️Delhi Ahmedabad upto 11x daily (including 1x daily Air India Express service) ✈️Delhi Gaya 2x daily (announced previously) Further changes possible as we are still 45 days away from the start of the schedule @networkthoughts

Air India Express makes Surat Dubai (DXB) service daily from the start of the winter schedule In addition, they are adding daily Navi Mumbai Surat flights from the same date (possibly to position aircraft) IX 1534 NMI 0500 STV 0555 IX 1535 STV 2315 NMI 0010 IX 335 STV 0710 DXB 0855 IX 336 DXB 0955 STV 1415 In addition Surat Sharjah is offered 4 weekly @networkthoughts

IndiGo has added Delhi Kishangarh (KQH) and Delhi Bareilly (BEK) to complement Noida service to both these airports. Service started 1st July onwards and continues through winter with ATR 72 operating DEL KQH 4 weekly complements DXN KQH 3 weekly operation DEL BEK 3 weekly complements DXN BEK 4 weekly operation Ahmedabad Kishangarh stays suspended @networkthoughts

IndiGo ATR ops at Navi Mumbai (NMI) in winter 26 IndiGo continues to base 3 atrs in Navi Mumbai (NMI) in the winter schedule starting October 25 but with a slightly different route profile vs summer ✈️Navi Mumbai - Ahmedabad will be served 3 daily with ATR services including a base departure ✈️Navi Mumbai - Rajkot Hirasar served twice daily including a base departure ✈️Navi Mumbai - Kolhapur served twice daily including a base departure ✈️Navi Mumbai - Bhavnagar served twice daily ✈️Navi Mumbai - Diu served once daily The Diu flight offers a one stop connection to Ahmedabad. Aircraft routed as NMI DIU AMD DIU NMI. In consequence, Surat Diu is no longer on sale. ✈️There is no ATR scheduled between Navi Mumbai and Goa Dabolim. Consequently Dabolim Coimbatore and Dabolim Nasik / IXU are no longer on sale @networkthoughts

In the winter schedule, Air India is increasing and premiumising it's seat capacity on Mumbai / Delhi Dubai starting October 25. All 24 weekly Mumbai (BOM) Dubai (DXB) flights will offer premium economy with 10x weekly 789, 2x weekly retrofit 3 class 788 & 10x weekly 320neo scheduled - all offering premium economy. From Delhi in contrast, service will be maintained at 4 daily but upguaged with more seats on offer with 1x daily on the 777-300 er, 13x weekly 2 class 788, 6x weekly 320 neo complemented by a Saturdays only op where the 320ceo fills in for the neo and the 3 class 788 for a 2 class 788, thereby ensuring 1x daily premium economy service. @networkthoughts

The next 2 long haul routes to see Air India's retrofit 3 class 788 aircraft will be daily Bengaluru to London Heathrow from January 1 & 5 weekly Mumbai to Tokyo Haneda from 1st February. With this, both London Heathrow & Tokyo Haneda will only be served by Air India's new product. As more aircraft return from retrofits, we should this network increasing @networkthoughts

Air India upguages Delhi to Manila and Mumbai to Mauritius from 321LR to 2 class 788 series aircraft in the winter schedule reflecting fairly quick maturity of both routes. Both started as 4/5 weekly, moved to daily service fairly recently and now upguaged. Delhi Manila will move to 788 from 25th October with slightly tweaked timings (1150 departure from DEL). Mumbai Mauritius will move to 788 from 1st January @networkthoughts

Air India adds seasonal capacity out of Mumbai and Delhi for winter starting last week October unless noted otherwise Mumbai Tokyo Haneda moves to 5x weekly (summer 4x) from 7th January Mumbai Frankfurt moves to 6x weekly (summer and previously 5x weekly) Delhi Milan MXP moves to daily from 4/5 weekly earlier New York JFK served with one daily each from Delhi and Mumbai Newark (EWR) served 4x weekly from Delhi and 3x weekly from Mumbai @networkthoughts

Air India adds 3x weekly Delhi Melbourne service in the winter schedule AI 310 DEL 1345 MEL 0730 AI 311 MEL 0915 DEL 1635 Served 3 weekly on 2 class 788 aircraft Total service is 10x weekly - 7x weekly on the 77W and 3x on 788 marking a massive capacity addition vs last winter @networkthoughts

Flights to / from all other ports including Hyderabad & on the ATR network have consistently lower fares than similarly timed equivalents from DEL. Only in the case of Bengaluru and to a lesser extent Lucknow, the fare disadvantage for Noida airport is lower and in a few cases the BLR DXN flight is at a premium to the similarly timed BLR DEL departure. The lowest fare flights from DXN are the base departure flights (indeed DXN IXC has already been suspended) which depend purely on local catchment. Even flights to Dharamshala or Jammu (latter in demand thanks to the seasonal amarnath yatra traffic) are cheaper from Noida compared to Delhi While this is lean season and things should improve post August, for now DXN network expansion (as that for Navi Mumbai) will depend on the ability to extract higher revenue (& hence profit) compared to other non metro airports We will watch this closely @networkthoughts

After the highs, the lows This lean season (July - mid September) has seen far sharper cutbacks than even previous years, driven by fuel prices as well as demand pressures. In the top 8 markets, the total daily departures in the last week of July is 20% lower than the last week of May. But this happens every year which is why the interesting comparison is with previous year July month data. July is amongst the leanest months with lesser leisure / vacation traveling and would reflect primarily business related traffic. On that account alone, this read when seen as an indicator of business mood and activity is deeply worrying. Airlines have of course considered the high fuel prices and hence higher fares they have to charge and hence reduced capacity to manage their bottomline. It is telling when a high fixed cost capital asset is better parked than being utilised to earn a return (all airlines barring Spicejet have increased their fleet size over 2 years) For the purposes of this assessment I have looked at catchment areas - hence Delhi NCR aggregates Delhi (DEL), Noida (DXN) and Hindon (HDO) airports and similarly for Greater Mumbai and Goa. All data across the 3 years is for the last week of July. Now the analysis ✈️ Delhi and Mumbai are slightly down despite the addition of capacity in hitherto constrained markets. In both these markets Air India group is the primary driver of the decline while IndiGo and Akasa have expanded. BOM which had lost its #2 position to BLR in April will regain that #2 position in July (possibly earlier) while NMI & DXN provide additional capacity (Hindon is sharply de growing) ✈️Pune is the only metro to show growth where Air India Express has grown significantly and IndiGo has also added departures. Pune slots are valuable and constrained and hence will be prioritised for operations but the net additions do indicate stronger demand. Pune has also recovered it's 7th place and moved back ahead of Ahmedabad which is amongst the worst performers over 2 years ✈️Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata have all degrown at close to double digit rates with all carriers but in particular IndiGo have cut sharply. That said, IndiGo has replaced some ATR departures with higher capacity 320/321 aircraft so the cut in seats will be lower. ✈️The cuts in the next 7 markets is even worse with an aggregate 13% reduction and with Goa alone losing a 5th of its departures indicating an even worse lean season than previous years and painting a grim picture of leisure demand ✈️Guwahati loses the least though that is primarily a function of the Route Dispersal Guidelines (RDG) that mandate a certain percentage of north east India flights As things stand, July should be the worst month with a sequential recovery in August & further into September. Everyone in the industry and outside will be hoping that things look better as the festive season kicks in. @networkthoughts