malgudi

I don't think this is true. BLR (and HYD, MAA to a lesser extent) are still India's equivalent of Silicon Valley.

wask

Take a look at GE, Oracle, Microsoft, Ebay, Amazon, Google, Yahoo....
The list just goes on. All these companies and others have their main India offices in Southern India.. not BOM and DEL.

I Fly Delta Jets

Intel, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Google, AMD ..... list goes on and on!

GUWonder

An over-focus on just the tech-oriented sector's firms and where their largest offices are -- that does not cover most or even all the non-Indian MNCs in India and certainly not their in-country head offices.

I'll look later to see if I can get something to post or direct toward.

B747-437B

No there isn't. They are fighting for the largest slice of a finite sized pie. In the end, one of them will blink.

The most interesting trend we have seen is that while the largest percentage based growth in international traffic from India has been seen in the second-tier airports (Bangalore, Hyderabad, etc...), the highest levels of absolute growth (pure passenger numbers) continue to be seen in Mumbai and Delhi.

sshank

Wonder - what you say is generally true - 'old economy' MNCs are predominantly in Mumbai (to a lesser extent in Delhi). For example just about all the Pharma MNCs are in Mumbai - that too on the same area (Worli), most MNC banks are in Mumbai, while most engineering type MNCs (the Siemens, ABB types are again Mumbai - Pune belt).

But things are a changing - while most of the tech/IT/software companies are heading south, Delhi is taking a huge bite out of the non tech MNCs and has probably been the biggest winner overall in the past decade. Mind you, most of these would have automatically gone to Mumbai in the past. Even my company (a US based Pharma MNC) has looked into moving its India HQ from Mumbai to Gurgaon - though it is unlikely to happen.

In addition, for many segments like auto and manufacturing, the HQ follows the main plant and therefore you see Hyundai in Chennai, and Toyota and Volvo in Bangalore and so on. Mumbai has been the biggest loser in all this -its overstreached infrastructure, apathy of the local government, and sky high cost of doing business (by Indian standards) has hastened this trend.

GUWonder

As you rightfully noted, things are changing (and quickly at that); but last time I checked (Q4 2003/Q1 2004), DEL + BOM together were still ahead of the rest put together. Given what is happening however, the peripheralization and de-centralization (of sorts) of business centers there are speeding up (faster than even these past few years). I don't know how much longer BOM + DEL will be ahead, and the gap has narrowed significantly (to say the least).

gmailflyer

The demand in the south is immense - the problem is that the infrastructure is not ready yet. Chennai is getting better and so you see a lot of South East Asian carriers flying to Chennai (SQ, TG, MH, UL, etc.). The Southern region has not yet been promoted as a part of the tourist circuit the way Northen corridor has been. All this is changing - hence the increasing demand to BLR, MAA, HYD.

The moment new airports are completed, you'll see an explosion of demand to the South. Also, Air Sahara development of HYD as a hub, if it succeeds will give a big boost to air travel options in the South. Fog prevents early morning flts. With new airports hopefully they will have modern infrastructure to allow operations in moderate fog conditions.

Southern cities were previously not that well connected. Even as recently as a year or two ago, HYD-BLR used to be once a day freq for domestic carriers. I had to wait till 10:30 AM for flts to MAA from BLR. All this is changing now. So you couldn't fly to BLR to connect to HYD. All that is changing now.

Most DGCA numbers do not capture true traffic demand. Many pax purchase tickets to BOM for onward flts to BLR, HYD, MAA. They are not even on the same PNR. So international demand to BLR in particular is under-reported.

True test of demand is in pricing and availability. Flts to BLR are almost always more expensive (even after accounting for slightly longer distances) than those to BOM/DEL because the supply is mismatched to demand. BLR flts on LH are almost always full - particularly in J class. You can always find seats on BOM or other destinations even when BLR is full.

Sure, BOM/DEL in absolute numbers do have higher growth than BLR/HYD/MAA. These are established international airports with decades of entrenched position in travel and business circuites. Don't expect changes within years. My prediction is that BLR and MAA in particular will take a larger proportion of international traffic within a decade. Currently BOM+DEL account for 50%+ arrivals/departures of all intnl pax. I expect that they will fall below 50% and lose market share to BLR, MAA and HYD.

Look at how many gulf flts now originate or terminate directly in Kerala.

wask

Thats only because a large number of expat from Kerala work in the gulf countries. Apart from Middle East based carriers and Silk Air there are no other major Eurpoean, American or South East Asian carriers that fly straight into Kerala.