UA Fan

This is trully disgraceful.

manuc

Greatly benefits QF and SQ too by restricting competition!
Approx 200,000 NRIs and PIOs in australia

SQ421

The other side to the discussion is, how many of them would actually fly Air India? And how much of an impact will a single daily flight have?

AI is starting the MEL route to target the large number of students and new migrants (many if not most of whom are working blue collar jobs / trades), which have in the recent years, gravitated to Victoria. Hardly a high yield route.

I doubt QF and SQ would be worried about the impact that AI will have on the market with a single daily MEL-DEL flight. The flight is fantastic if you are living in Victora, and your ultimate destination is DEL, or surrounds. Departing from any other city (viz. SYD/CBR/BNE) would require transiting at MEL and arriving into any other major city outside the DEL catchment area requires a transit at DEL (and sizable backtracking).

If a change of planes is required, why not do it in SIN, BKK, HKG, KUL and fly directly to your destination city; than changing planes in DEL.

QF and SQ, possibly along with CX can be considered the "premium" airlines on this route, going by their economy class pricing; while MH, TG and EK seem to cater to the price sensitive market. QF has twice started and stopped the SYD-BOM service in the last seven years, and now, barring QF51/52; whose SIN-BOM service almost operates as an extension of its BNE-SIN service, instead of having the aircraft sit on the ground; choses to use SIN as a scissor hub to feed in passengers from across Australia onto its own metal to BOM (thrice weekly) or onto 9W and IT services.

SQ flies one stop from every capital city in Australia (except CBR and HBA) into every major market in India. Same goes for EK and to a lesser extent, TG and MH.

rathin100

This is ridiculous. Its like You screw up your smart child's future career to subsidise the drug addiction of the one black sheep in your family! Disgusting!

rathin100

Excellent post.
My own take is that there is potential for a GOOD airline (not junk like AI) that can deliver quality service and o do this it must be willing to spend money on transit and must aggresively seek the permium cabin market (of which there is plenty to OZ and especially Melbourne). The thing is the floght would need to leave and arrive at timings convenient fior domestic transits especailly from BOM HYD BLR MAA and the Gujarat cities. For this reason I would even consider starting (given theat BOM is a no go) the flight from HYD or BLR or even touching down there...
An afternoon departure, midmorning return should do the trick.

Could also consider a one stop service IND-CGK-MEL though I dont think this would work for the reasons SQ421 mentions -- too much logistics for transits at either end.

Keyser

SQ421

Again, for the premium market, any airline be it AI/9W/IT that operates a single daily flight will have to compete on price, considering the competition present. Any premium cabin traffic originating in Australia as a result of corporate travel contracts is more than likely tied up by Qantas/OneWorld; with SQ/*A coming in second. A single daily flight wouldn't be much attractive to a business traveler as there's no flexibility in terms of scheduling or IRROPS.


Again, even with conveniently timed incoming and outbound transits from DEL to BOM/MAA/HYD/BLR/AMD; the MEL-DEL-xxx routing would involve substantial backtracking; along with a decent buffer to make the connection.

The same can be achieved by flying on SQ/QF/TG/CX/MH; without the back tracking, or the need to clear customs and immigration in India and then to wait around for a domestic leg.

Same story applies while originating from a city in Australia that is not MEL (or in its catchment area). To give an example; I'm currently based in Canberra; and fly regularly into BOM; and the only way I'll use a non stop/direct flight to India is if it arrives into BOM. I understand that one transit at the Australian end is inevitable for me to get from CBR to SYD/MEL but if I have to have a second transit; I'd rather have it in SIN or HKG. Reasons being

1. Much better airports to wait at especially with lounge access
2. Get to break the journey at a halfway point, stretch my legs
3. Convenience of clearing customs at my final arrival and heading home


SQ has fantastic schedule into and out of SIN so in most cases, one can connect from an inbound flight from Australia to an onward flight to India in 4-6 hours. Much easier to spend time in transit at Changi; land at your destination, clear immigration/customs and head home. QF too times its arrivals into Singapore really well with the India bound departures on its own Metal as well as Jet and Kingfisher. On most QF flights, the transit in Singapore is actually closer to 2 hours.


More than logistics and transits; I'd query the rationale of an India-CGK-Australia flight due to lack of pax loads. Most Australia-Indonesia market is ex-DPS and is covered by Virgin Blue/Jetstar/Garuda. A purely price sensitive market. Traffic between CGK and Australia is likely to lean towards Government officials who'll be flying Qantas or Garuda.

A better strategy might be to work with its soon to be *A partners in providing connectivity between Singapore/Bangkok and second tier Indian cities (AMD/ATQ/HYD/COK); and code sharing on onward connections into Australia.

At times, I do find myself befuddled at GoI / Air India's strategy to enter this market, considering there is sufficient number of seats currently available between India and Australia. One can't help but wonder if some senior bureaucrats son/daughter has decided to study in Melbourne

manuc

lol, though i guess a sr bureaucrat's son / daughter would prefer flying QF or SQ if they could.....

rathin100

You raise again very important points A quick response

(1) i am taking it that any indian airline will compete effectively with SQ etc on product. We need to start now. Assuming the product is at elast 80 per cent as good as CX. SQ and better than QF, I think IT can certainly compete in OW. So can Jet, pasrticularly for the exapnding India market

(2) The backtracking wont matter unless we are looking at SQ as competition. CX doesnt have the reach. So they have to beat TG/Malaysia. Not so difficult in my view, for the India originating and OZ ethnic market.
Teh Indian airlines should explore this
(3) Indonesia is a rapidly grwoing economy and there is an explosion of 2 way FDI between india and Indonesia. That was my rationale.. if the product can get brand recognition then it would fill seats but I dont think it would work precisly because of the higher hard unit costs, and the difficulty in securing loads CGK-MEL, even competing on price
(4) Your example is very valid We would probably lose you Hence getting the hub right is important

Bottom line there is strategic value in investing in an India -Oz route.. Is there? Id need to do more ressrach but primatr facie the gorwth in the India market means more business travel between both destinations. There must be room to capitalise on ethnic preference the other way if we get the product right I dont need to be a capacity multidestination carrier all at once but if I (meaning an Indian airline) find emough niche(s) on the counts I am mentioning, it will be worth the calculated risk --emirates style!. As seen on the SA route as also Hong Kong, the Indian marlet can tilt its preferences for home airlines, if they deliver the right product.

Over time of course the ground product will need to be ramped up and a multi destination strategy evolved. We know that the astoundingly fast growing Indian market will provide that space in the future. But the Airlines of India need to start investing in their brands in these new markets now to get that space.

SQ421

Ah, but they'd have to pay for a ticket on QF/SQ; daddy can just snap his fingers and a biz seat will magically open up on AI. And then there's the family visits to see the kid; which must be taken into account as well

SQ421

Agreed. The new AI biz hard product is good enough that an aggressive pricing strategy could tilt a few in its favour. The 9W herringbone seats and IT's widebody biz class seats can, IMO compete well with CX herringbone biz and QF. SQ biz is probably a class apart; and its pricing reflects that.

With IT joining OW, we might well see some interesting synergies taking place between IT and QF. Perhaps a thrice weekly BOM-SIN-SYD/MEL on IT to complement the thrice weekly BNE-SIN-BOM on QF; with terminator flights in SIN from India and Australia feeding traffic to IT and QF's SIN-India and SIN-Australia flights on other days. IT will also have excellent QF lounges to use in SYD/MEL and SIN

9W, should it join SkyTeam will be an interesting addition to the Oz market. SkyTeam's only presence in Australia is Korean Airlines and Delta (which isn't germane to this discussion). If 9W can provide a strong alternative within SkyTeam in carrying passengers from Europe to Australia; that could give it some good numbers.

AF/KL currently fly into SIN/HKG and code share with QF between SIN/HKG and Australia. If 9W could get into the India-SIN/HKG-Oz routing, it could work well with AF/KL in carrying those Australia bound Pax down under.


You forget Emirates and Etihad. Both compete on price, capture a large base of ethnic market that isn't bothered with backtracking from Dubai. On TG/MH, I agree; not that difficult for 9W/IT to compete with TG/MH on the India-Oz route (but GoI is insistent on leaving this route to AI for a while - disastrous).

I wasn't aware of the traffic between India and Indonesia. All the same, if AI wants to capture premium market ex-MEL; a hopper flight via CGK is probably not going to attract much customers.

Perhaps AI would consider operating this flight as DEL-BLR/HYD-MEL as a single flight number. BLR and HYD are both new airports, fairly easy to transit (atleast from what I've seen at HYD) and reduce the back tracking required for someone who's ultimate destination is in the western, central, southern or eastern India. Also BLR/HYD could negate the fog and related Wx delays that hamper DEL in winter.

Hubbing the flight in BLR/HYD also gives AI a chance to capture the traffic to/from the Satyams, Infosys' and Accentures of the world, who do a fair bit of business in Australia, do the client facing, requirements capturing work in MEL/SYD and ship the development to BLR/HYD.

Another hindrance in AI gaining ground, IMO, is also the image most "Indians" who've moved overseas more than a decade ago; have of Air India. Its certainly not favourable. And these migrants, who are now well settled citizens and high net worth professionals in their new "homelands" would rather fly SQ/QF/CX (most do for convenience, some for "prestige" ).

I guess AI needs to work on its image, unless it is happy to carry the VFR / price sensitive loads between MEL and DEL

I have no doubts that Indian carriers can compete in new markets and even tilt the loads in favour of the homegrown carriers. Doubt remains as to whether AI can do it. IT/9W certainly can.

Perhaps the GoI should just divide AI's assets between 9W and IT; and get out of the aviation business altogether. A business that it runs worse than it runs the railways.

Emirates? Calculated Risk? What they do is more akin to seat dumping. Just IMO.

Here2There

More help for AI. If this was a horse it would have been put out of its misery long time ago.

Air India bills: Govt asks oil companies to defer deadline by a month

SQ421

Forget the privatisation; the best thing for Aviation Industry in India might well be for this behemoth of socialism to collapse; and for Kingfisher, Jet and Other players to pick up the pieces without any of the employee union / public sector baggage that comes with it.

rathin100

^^^ No way Air Iindia can compete with anything on wings, when referring to the Airlines of India I mean 9W, IT and in future probably Indigo and Spicejet international spinoffs. I agree that if this nightmare called AI cannot be endeed by privatising it because no one wants it, asset strip the airline and auction its bilaterals

IMO EK is not seat dumping. They get fantatsic loads out of South Asa and Africa (this I know) also sectors lik DXB-SIN-MEL In the case of Asia and Africva they were first iinto new countries (Africa) 2t tier cities (S Asia) at a time where the European carriers were too lazy to do the hard work of market development

Im now in Cairo of an Ek fight from GRU. On my flight yeaterday in J class there were ppl transiting here from ACC, JNB, and even 1 from Moscow, not to mention PVG and SOuth asia As a result, the cabin was 39/42. This in a slump! There is an RBS study which shows that they wiull have enough bums for seats for all thier A380 acquisitions as well.

Here2There

+1