Sole route operator: In 10 yrs, IndiGo's share up 3x

It is now the only player on 60% of domestic routes, up from 22%

- DEEPAK PATEL

IndiGo is now the sole airline on 60.4 percent of India's domestic routes, up from just 22.3 per cent a decade ago, underscoring why its operational meltdown has effectively paralysed air travel across the country.

The overall 10-year data, shared by aviation analytics firm Cirium, reveals a fundamental shift from competitive distribution to extreme concentration.

That dominance is evident on some of the country's busiest corridors. Consider the Chennai-Coimbatore and Kolkata-Hyderabad routes, which together saw 927 scheduled flights last month (472 and 455, respectively). Or take the ChennaiTiruchchirappalli and AhmedabadHyderabad sectors, which recorded a combined 688 flights (360 and 328, respectively). The critical point across all these key routes is the same-every single one of these nearly 1,615 monthly flights was by IndiGo. No other airline offered a single flight.

This was not always the case. In November 2015, India's domestic air network consisted of 355 unique routes, and IndiGo was the sole operator on 79 of them. While IndiGo was the largest player even then, it still faced substantial competition from other carriers such as Air India and SpiceJet, which had their own exclusive domains as well. Air India was the sole operator on 49 routes and SpiceJet on 41 routes in November 2015, according to the data.