Vistara gains International traction as Indian carriers continue to fly high

A total of 1.77 crore international passengers travelled to and from India in Q4 of 2023 (October to December). This was 9 per cent more than the previous quarter and 19 per cent more than the corresponding quarter in 2022. The numbers are also all-time best, beating the previous best of Q4CY19 by 5 per cent.

There also was a further tilt of 0.4 per cent towards Indian carriers in this quarter over the previous one, but at 44.6 per cent share, over half the traffic is carried by foreign carriers. The quarter was driven by announcements from Thailand and Malaysia on visa-free access for Indians, but while the local carriers made the most of it, Indian carriers were slow in taking advantage, especially for Malaysia where there remains only one daily flight from an Indian carrier, IndiGo, while every other flight between the two countries is operated by a foreign carrier.

Vistara jumps places

Tata-SIA joint venture Vistara, which is all set to merge with Air India, jumped to fifth position in international passengers carried, from its seventh position in the last quarter. The airline was ninth in the same quarter in 2022. In terms of passengers carried, the airline saw a growth of 23 per cent over the previous quarter and 70 per cent over Q4-2022. The airline launched flights to Denpasar Bali in December.

The top 10 carriers on the list remained the same, though Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways and Air Arabia lost a place each while Vistara gained two places and Spicejet gained one place. The top three remained the same with IndiGo leading the pack, followed by Air India and Emirates. Amongst the top 10 airlines, they carried 64.8 per cent of the total international traffic, to and from India.

IndiGo and Air India grew 8 per cent and 9 per cent respectively over the previous quarter and 39 per cent and 22 per cent over Q4 CY22. Emirates grew only 2 per cent over the previous quarter and 1 per cent over Q4-CY22 as it has limited additional seats to offer, due to the airline exhausting bilateral rights.

Opportunity for Indian carriers

The three middle-eastern carriers – Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways – carry around 25,000 passengers daily to and from India. Here is where the opportunity lies for Indian carriers. Most of these are passengers who fly onwards to Europe and North America. When Air India goes full throttle with its expansion to Europe and North America amongst others and IndiGo starts adding the A321XLRs to its network, adding capacity to parts of Europe, the Indian carriers have immense potential to attract passengers back from the middle-eastern carriers.

But missing out on key markets

The visa-free or visa-on-arrival or easy-to-get visa regimes in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam are packing all the traffic. Vietnam has seen the local carriers expand and utilise all capacity to metro routes and add Tier II cities to their network. On the other hand, IndiGo is the only operator from India, offering flights only from Kolkata. The Vietnamese carriers – both VietJet and Vietnam Airlines – have upgraded the flights to widebody aircraft and added capacity. On the Malaysia-India routes, all but one flight a day is operated by foreign carriers. AirAsia Bhd, Malaysia Airlines and Batik Air Malaysia are expanding to Tier II cities in India, while Indian carriers shy away from the metros.

The traffic between Malaysia and India grew 22 per cent year over year, while that between India and Vietnam grew 2.5 times!

Top 10 countries taking away the traffic

Of the total international traffic, 29 per cent travels to, from and via the UAE, largely driven by the capacity deployed by Emirates, Flydubai, Air Arabia and Etihad to India. Singapore is next with 8 per cent, followed by Saudi Arabia at 7 per cent.

The revision of Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) as and when it happens, will tilt this mix in future.