IndiGo, India’s largest carrier by fleet and market share, will launch flights to Krabi, its third destination in Thailand. IndiGo operates to Bangkok – Suvarnabhumi and Phuket from various points in India. This marks the culmination of the seven new destinations until March 2025, which the airline had said it would commence. The others were Madinah, Jaffna, Mauritius, Penang ,Langkawi and Seychelles.
The airline will connect Mumbai to Krabi, as below. Flights begin March 23, 2025 and operate on all days except Tuesdays.
6E1085 BOM1655 – 2255KBV
6E1086 KBV2355 – 0310(+1)BOM
Beginning March 30, 2025, the flights are daily with a changed timing
6E1085 BOM0415 – 1010KBV
6E1086 KBV2145 – 0040(+1)BOM
Krabi International Airport (IATA: KBV) is relatively new, having opened only in 1999. The airport serves the tourist places of Pha Nang Bay, where there are beautiful beaches and limestone cliffs similar to Halong bay in Vietnam. It also acts as a gateway to Phi Phi islands. The region is inviting for scuba divers, snorkelers and adventure seekers. As per AOT (Airports of Thailand), the public company which manages airports in Thailand, Krabi is the sixth busiest airport in Thailand.
This is likely to make IndiGo a popular choice for tour operators who may want to fly in at one point and fly out from another. From a tourist perspective, this saves up on the cost of returning to the same point from where they began the journey. It is heartening to see an Indian airline connect a Tier II city in another country with a direct flight to cater to Indian tourists. This also gives a head start to IndiGo against the Air India group which has been increasing its presence to Thailand with a two pronged strategy divided between Air India and Air India Express.
With this, IndiGo completes the seven international destinations which it had announced it would launch. It is a rarity these days for an airline to announce, follow through and complete. Its competition in India, Air India, Akasa Air and Spicejet have made some tall announcements in the past only to shy away from them.
Why Mumbai?
I would have personally expected this flight to be from Delhi or Bengaluru. Delhi being the natural choice to start a new destination for the amount of traffic it provides and Bengaluru because it now has a bank of flights to leisure destinations. While both Delhi and Bengaluru may get added in due course of time, Mumbai becoming the first mover could be a mix of slot availability, demand and connections.
The flights opened for sale yesterday and the large gap clearly indicate that there will be one more leg from Krabi, beyond Mumbai.
Network Thoughts
IndiGo has expanded like never before in the last two years. Some of these flights have seen an increase in frequency while some continue to be non-daily or serving only one other station in the network. The airline being cost conscious has always looked at leveraging a station fully and the next financial year may be towards this where it can connect places like Jaffna, Nairobi and the likes from more destinations or more frequencies. The biggest hindrance in this is the availability of aircraft.
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