Air India has a similar thought process to IndiGo, and so have been Kingfisher and Jet Airways before them. The airlines realise that some routes need a business-class cabin and a full-service — lounge, meals on board, priority boarding and priority baggage delivery among other features.
Other routes don’t have the potential to pay for business-class travel, so airlines would rather have all the seats configured in economy only. This was the concept with Kingfisher Red (erstwhile Air Deccan) and Jet Konnect. Even now, Vistara has 10 aircraft configured in a full-economy configuration, and Air India has many such aircraft, too.
Air India, though, also has a subsidiary, Air India Express, a no-frills carrier. Air India intends to operate services on the trunk routes, such as Mumbai—Delhi, Delhi—Bengaluru, and so on, and hand over many routes to Air India Express, where the customer might be price sensitive.
So, in a few years, the airlines will start to look somewhat similar in terms of operational choices. Trunk routes are served by aircraft equipped with business cabins, price-sensitive routes are served by all-economy aircraft, the ability to earn loyalty points for the flights, and the ability to fly from India to a large part of the world on an Indian carrier.
The only thing different will be the scale. While Air India will continue to expand within India, IndiGo’s lead will be something to catch up with and take a long time.