A couple of years ago there was a tussle over who offers higher capacity out of India, IndiGo or Air India? Air India, then a government entity, had shot back to say that Capacity by ASK (Available Seat Kilometers) is the only true measure and anybody representing seats as a measure is not showing the right metrics. A lot has changed in Indian skies since then, with a pandemic inbetween.
With IndiGo maintaining its lead on seats on offer out of India to international destinations and Air India maintaining its lead on capacity by ASK and this unlikely to change for a while, one might want to look at the top international airlines by the seats they offer out of India. This is a follow up to the previous two posts, about availability of First class seats from India and the India – Dubai market. Data has been sourced from a mix of online free to use resources, schedule listings and Cirium, an aviation analytics company.
Emirates all the way
The top airline is an open secret with Emirates leading the large offering 61,186 weekly seats, followed by Etihad which offers 37,187 weekly seats. Coupled with Air Arabia which operates from Sharjah, the three airports Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah see a massive 1 lakh+ seats on offer by foreign carriers to and from India on a weekly basis.
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Singapore Airlines, which holds 25.1% stake in Air India, comes in third while another middle eastern carrier Qatar Airways comes in fourth. Air Arabia takes the fifth position. The top five are also constrained by bilateral rights to add any more flights to India.
Amongst the top 20 airlines,
- Eight out of 20 from GCC region
- Six out of 20 from ASEAN
- Three from Europe
- One from Hong Kong (Cathay Pacific)
- One from Africa (Ethiopian)
- One from Indian sub continent (Sri Lankan)
The future network of Indian carriers, both Air India and IndiGo will revolve along bypassing these hubs and the focus will be where these carriers take the traffic from India.
Have you flown via any of these hubs? Write in about your experiences
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