TravTalk India Online Magazine
Air India Express prepares to embark on its most ambitious journey in its history. Unveiling strong plans for 2024, Aloke Singh, Managing Director, Air India Express, says that with its expanded fleets, new routes, and a streamlined organisational structure, the airline is poised to capitalise on India’s burgeoning aviation market.
Janice Alyosius
Unveiling the ambitious plans of Air India Express for 2024, Aloke Singh, Managing Director, Air India Express, recently outlined a series of strategic initiatives that promise to significantly enhance the airline’s capabilities and market presence. “We have an enormous expansion in the offing. In terms of capacity, we are going to add almost 40 per cent over the last year’s capacity,” Singh said, adding that, “20 aircraft have already joined the fleet. Another 30 will come by December. Next year onwards we will head into another phase of growth.”
Domestic and international air connectivity
Air India Express aims to utilise the expanded capacity to enhance its footprint and operations, encompassing both domestic and regional routes, as well as short-haul international destinations. Underlining the airline’s commitment to expanding its international reach, Singh revealed, “In the international markets we are looking at serving Dhaka and Kathmandu, which will start as early as July this year. Later, during the financial year we will be looking at Thailand.”
Highlighting the airline’s strategy on the domestic front, he said, “We will be increasing our frequencies and operating to some new airports from existing cities. We will be starting flights from Hindon, which is an airport serving Delhi. We will be offering daily services from Hindon to Bengaluru, Kolkata, Goa, and Chennai, that is something new and the flights will open for sale in a few days.” He also talked about the upcoming merger. “Apart from the network growth and addition of new destinations, we will be completing our legal merger this year itself. AirAsia India and Air India Express entities will come together, and we will have one AOC, one legal entity. So, that is something significant that will happen this year.”
Golden age of Indian aviation
Singh expressed optimism about India’s aviation future and highlighted growth drivers. “I think, Indian aviation is entering, what I can call, the golden age. All the growth drivers we see point to a huge growth coming up in the Indian market. The demographics are just right, we have a very young population, and we are the largest population in the world now,” he said.
“India is hugely underpenetrated market. Even if you compare with emerging markets like Indonesia, Vietnam or Brazil, the per capita consumption of air travel is barely one-third or half. So, there is so much more room to grow; Indians are travelling, the GDP is growing. So, what we are going to see in the next five years is certainly a doubling of the market that we have today and huge growth opportunities ahead,” he added.
Competitive airfares
On the airfares, Singh said, “The airfares are going to be competitive. Given the cost structure that we have got as an industry, we need to generate a return on what we invest. But the market is going to remain deeply competitive. So, that will make sure that the airfares are competitive, while it is generating an adequate return for the airline companies.”
He added, “If we go back many years, perhaps even decades, the airfare increase per capita has barely kept pace with inflation. So, at a unit level, prices have adjusted for inflation and in real terms they have come down and the situation will remain so going forward.”
