Starting in July, there has been a lull in Indian skies, with passenger numbers dropping below the 4 lakh mark on a few occasions and airlines deploying fewer than 3,000 flights a day on domestic routes. However, that is set to change over the Independence Day long weekend, when airlines, led by market leader IndiGo, will operate additional flights to cater to the demand.
Data obtained from Cirium, an aviation analytics company, exclusively for this article shows a sudden surge in seat capacity around 15 August. There are over 12,000 more seats in the market on Friday, 15 August, compared to Friday, 8 August. The data shows that the average seat availability between 1 August and 13 August was 5.05 lakh, rising to 5.14 lakh on 14 August, 5.15 lakh on 15 August, and then peaking again at 5.19 lakh on 18 August, the end of the long weekend, across all airlines.
IndiGo is taking the lead
Market leader IndiGo is adding nearly 9,000 of the total 12,000 seats, with the rest contributed by Air India Express (1,000 seats), Akasa Air (300 seats), and SpiceJet (1,000 seats). The top carriers are adding around 66 additional flights on 15 August to cater to the high demand, 38 by IndiGo, 10 by Air India Express, eight by SpiceJet, and two by Akasa Air. A similar pattern is expected on Monday, when IndiGo will operate 26 more flights compared to the corresponding Monday of the previous week, while Air India Express will add 10 more, some of which are reinstated services or new routes.
Goa is the hot favourite, air fares are a mixed bag
Even as debates continue over whether Goa is falling off the tourist map, with complaints from locals about tourists, taxi issues, and rising costs, the state remains a hot favourite for long-weekend travellers. On 15 August, IndiGo is adding two extra flights to Goa from Ahmedabad, three from Bengaluru, two from Mumbai, and one from Delhi. The airline is also adding a similar number of flights to Goa on 14 August, the eve of Independence Day. Air India Express, meanwhile, is augmenting flights to Bagdogra starting 15 August, not as a holiday-driven move, but as part of a broader capacity expansion that includes additional flights to Guwahati and Bagdogra from Kolkata.
The additional flights are helping keep airfares in check on routes where these “holiday special” services are operating. For example, the fare between Pune and Goa is upwards of ₹13,000 for the one-hour flight on 15 August. Prices are in a similar range for Nagpur–Goa and Indore–Goa flights on the same day. By contrast, fares between Delhi and Goa remain below ₹10,000, owing to the availability of additional flights and a better demand–supply balance compared to the Pune–Goa sector. However, fares to other tourist destinations, such as Kochi, Sri Vijaya Puram (Port Blair), and Dharamshala from Delhi, have risen significantly.
Many short international routes are seeing a spike in fares, including those to Dubai, Bangkok, and Phuket, destinations that either offer visa on arrival or have easier visa norms for Indians. Bengaluru, which has seen increased connectivity to leisure destinations over the past year, is no exception, with fares rising to Phuket, Langkawi, and Colombo. By the following Friday, however, fares to destinations such as Langkawi and Colombo from Bengaluru drop to half or even less than half of the Independence Day weekend rates.
Respite for airlines?
There has been a drop in both flights and passengers since July as airlines pulled capacity from the market. IndiGo described the move as planned, aimed at better balancing demand and supply, while Air India reduced capacity as part of its rationalisation following the AI171 crash in Ahmedabad in June. Daily domestic departures fell below the 3,000 mark, with passenger numbers dipping below 4 lakh on some days. The long weekend around 15 August, followed by festive travel across the country, is expected to bring in more passengers and offer airlines some much-needed respite in what has been a lacklustre quarter.
The obvious question is how airlines are managing a sudden influx of capacity. IndiGo had deliberately pulled out capacity to match demand, focusing instead on maintenance tasks and engineering checks. The airline has now managed to bring back some aircraft temporarily to operate the additional flights, a flexibility that not many carriers have the luxury of enjoying.
