IndiGo continues to expand domestic operations

by Vinay Bhaskara

As its fleet grows with the introduction of new Airbus A320s, including India’s first sharklet retrofitted A320, low cost carrier (LCC) IndiGo continues to expand its domestic services. The carrier will be adding one additional daily flight to Jaipur, Nagpur, and Kolkata from its hub in Mumbai with schedules as follow:

Mumbai – Jaipur
6E296 BOM – JAI -- 1120 – 1300 – 320 -- Daily
6E295 JAI - BOM -- 1330 – 1515 – 320 -- Daily

Mumbai – Kolkata
6E327 BOM – CCU -- 1725 – 2000 – 320 -- Daily
6E328 CCU – BOM -- 2030 – 2335 – 320 -- Daily

Mumbai – Nagpur
6E403 BOM – NAG -- 1540 – 1705 – 320 -- Daily
6E412 NAG - BOM -- 0910 – 1035 – 320 – Daily

The new flights will all begin March 20th.

IndiGo continues to saturate the routes between major Indian metros, lacking other avenues of expansion given that runways at Tier II and III Indian airports are largely unable to handle the A320, nor do those markets have the demand to support 180 seat jets.

This lends credence to the idea that IndiGo will explore new avenues of expansion in the form of a regional airline operating turboprops. Furthermore, its existing operations, especially the longer distance ones, will become more profitable as the fuel burn savings are accrued from the continuous introduction of Sharklets equipped A320 aircraft.