Air India group most frequent flyer on 7 of 10 busiest domestic routes

It is 2nd biggest operator on 3 other routes

- DEEPAK PATEL

The Air India group - which comprises Air India, Vistara, Air India Express, and AirAsia India as a merged entity is the biggest operator on seven of the top 10 busiest routes in India. But it remains a distant number two, after IndiGo, in the overall domestic market.

The Tata group and Singapore Airlines (SIA) announced on Tuesday that Vistara will be merged into Air India to create a single full-service airline, with SIA holding a 25.1 share in the new entity. AirAsia India is already in the process of merging into Air India Express to create a single low-cost subsidiary of Air India.

Before any airline merger approval, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) analyses air traffic between "point of origin and point of destination (city pairs)" to see what kind of market share the merged entity will have there, according to senior competition lawyers.

The seven routes where the Air India group is the leader in terms of weekly flights are DelhiMumbai, Delhi-Bengaluru, Mumbai-Bengaluru, MumbaiGoa, Delhi-Pune, Mumbai Chennai, and Delhi-Srinagar.

This dominance can help the Air India group to attract corporate traffic that does not mind spending big bucks to purchase seats, especially in premium economy or business class cabins.

Overall, IndiGo and the Air India group currently operate 10,196 flights per week and 4,826 flights per week in India, respectively, positioning themselves at the first two spots in the domestic aviation market, according to aviation analytics company Cirium's data.

However, on the Delhi-Mumbai route, India's busiest, the Air India group is currently operating 344 weekly flights, versus 214 weekly flights by IndiGo.