Indigo and Spicejet - international developments
 

So whilst nearly all the attention is on the developments (and incompetence) at AI/IC, Jet and Kingfisher, the "other two" Indigo and SpiceJet haven't been sitting idle.

On top of their domestic success, they have happily built themselves a nice little portfolio of international routes (* indicates confirmed flights that will start soon):

SpiceJet

• Ahmedabad - Dubai *
• Bombay - Dubai
• Cochin - Dubai *
• Cochin - Male *
• Delhi - Dubai
• Delhi - Guangzhou *
• Delhi - Kabul
• Delhi - Kathmandu x2
• Delhi - Riyadh *
• Madras - Colombo
• Madurai - Colombo *

Indigo

• Bombay - Bangkok
• Bombay - Dubai
• Bombay - Muscat
• Bombay - Singapore
• Calcutta - Bangkok *
• Calicut - Dubai *
• Cochin - Dubai
• Delhi - Bangkok x2
• Delhi - Dubai x2
• Delhi - Kathmandu
• Delhi - Singapore
• Hyderabad - Dubai
• Madras - Dubai
• Mangalore - Dubai *
• Trivandrum - Dubai *

- They're already larger than Jet to Dubai and will increase the gap even more with the new flights.
- In addition, rumour has it that a second flight on both Bombay-Bangkok and Bombay-Dubai as well as new flights on Bombay-Jeddah, Bombay-Riyadh, Calcutta-Dubai, Calcutta-Kathmandu, Delhi-Jeddah and Delhi-Muscat are expected soon.
- On the bread-and-butter BOM-DEL too, they're at 14 daily now. Fourteen!

2300 miles DEL-CAN on SG? yikes... OK, I've done a 2400 mile US domestic transcon on a 738 before, but at what price point do they have to operate to convince people to try that out...?

Charging Rs 100 less than what Ai/Cathay/Jet charge ought to do it! :)

And DEL-CAN is shorter than many other routes flown from India on 737s/320s: Amman, Chengdu, Jeddah, Istanbul (not too long ago), Kuala Lumpur, St-Denis, Singapore... And Narita!

"Bombay", "Calcutta", "Madras"? That ship has sailed.

how long would that be, about 5 hours????

Yeah around that...500 miles/hr on avg....

SG has also been making noises about DEL-DAC-RGN

For a 737 more like 350 miles an hour for the climb and descent and approach hour followed by 450 miles per hour. Makes it a 5:15 plus add 30 for taxi in and out and the winds in that region during winter, it's going to be a super long flight.

Not quite, it hasn't.

And I can't say about Calcutta and Madras, but Bombay to Mumbai was an illegal name change, so I shan't be using it.

Besides, old habits die hard. There are lots of places, people and things I refer to by an older name, only because that's what I've always called them.

And speaking of, SpiceJet to Canton ;) is now nakki with 4 weekly flights starting 8 February :

dep DEL 17h20 arr CAN 0035
dep CAN 01h55 arr DEL 05h25

Not the most delightful timings at the Chinese end, but brilliant at the India end. Which, after all, is what an airline based in India ought to be looking at. Unlike the monkey-see-monkey-do AI, Jet and Kingfisher.

Okay so not quite international as the thread topic suggests, but Spice are starting Allahabad from next week.

Keyser, here's another option for you (if you're LCC inclined), though the timings are far from stellar for work purposes:

SG2356 DEL1335 - 1430IXD
SG2358 IXD1450 - 1600DEL

terrible terrible timing....i'm much better off taking the train....i get there at 8am & leave at 9:30pm the same day....

Impressive. Now when are they joining an alliance?

DEL - SIN must be equally long as well.?? 9W used to run this route on a 737 as well..not sure if the A330 does the route nowadays?

Air India does it on the 320. Touches almost 6 hours.

So SpiceJet are going to Sharjah next. Not that there's much of a chance of my flying them or any chance of my going to most of these places, but I'm always happy to see expansion, especially when it's from secondary and tertiary markets:

Bangkok is expected soon.