Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Air India


Air India has tentatively chosen Munich (MUC), Germany as its EU "scissors hub" airport along the same line as to how Brussels (BRU) functions for Jet Airways (9W). MUC airport has also confirmed that it has for the time being given AI two pairs of early morning slots for its DEL-JFK and BOM-ORD bound flights. AI in return has informed MUC that BOM-MUC-ORD would be flown daily by a B 744 where as DEL-MUC-JFK would be flown using a B 773ER. The two EU airports that were in contention for AI's business were VIE & MUC.

Slot timings given to AI for ORD & JFK flights via MUC are as follows :

Arr from BOM - 0630 a.m. Dep MUC 0820 a.m. - ORD operated by B 744 Arr from ORD - 0640 a.m. Dep MUC 0830 a.m. - BOM operated by B 744

Arr from DEL - 0645 a.m. Dep MUC 0820 a.m. - JFK operated by B 773 Arr from JFK - 0715 a.m. Dep MUC 0835 a.m. - DEL operated by B 773

Analysis :


It is interesting to note that MUC is now a serious contender to become AI's primary hub in Europe for North America bound flights, a concept that has some pros but more cons attached to it. On the positive side, MUC is a huge Star Alliance hub airport in EU which is useful for AI as it will be joining this airline group shortly. From MUC, AI can get feeder traffic from LH & OS's EU network bound for USA which shall prove to be useful especially in the low season. However, when an airline creates an intermediate hub, it is made with the forecast that there is a fair amount of O&D + 5th freedom traffic available on the entire route that is created to be flown via that hub + the 5th freedom route that the airline hopes to fly on sees little or no competition on it (such as ET's DEL-PEK route, DL's DKR-NBO/JNB route, 9W's future BRU-LAX, PVG-SFO routes etc). This is why QF's & NW's hubs in SIN & NRT respectively work because from their home market, there is decent O&D to SIN/NRT + onward traffic originating from their respective home markets & the intermediate hub bound for the final destination.


After examining the points above, none of this holds true for MUC as the O&D demand between India and MUC is minimal to say the least and on the trans-atlantic 5th freedom routes that AI hopes to fly out of MUC i.e. to JFK, ORD & LAX/SFO/IAD/IAH in the future, UAL & LH already offer daily nonstop flights on all of these routes except IAH. Therefore, one fails to see what AI hopes to extract by making MUC its biggest hub airport outside of India!


It is more feasible for Air India & Star Alliance to push for a new niche market segment to tap such as my last week's suggestion of making Manchester, UK (MAN) its intermediate hub for USA/Canada bound flights from India. From BOM, DEL & AMD, there is high O&D demand bound for Manchester + a smaller amount from HYD/MAA/BLR/CCU. From MAN, no airline flies to India nonstop + no airline flies nonstop to IAD, LAX, SFO & IAH from MAN thus providing Air India with an unique advantage of having a monopoly position on both India-MAN + MAN-North America flights.


Flights via MAN could be routed in the following manner :


BOM-MAN-ORD : daily B 744

DEL-MAN-JFK : daily B 773ER

AMD-MAN-IAH : daily B 773ER

HYD-MAN-LAX : daily B 772ER

BLR-MAN-SFO : daily B 773ER

MAA-MAN-IAD : daily B 773ER

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for that information.
I am really looking forward seeing some 744 from AI in MUC.

But is there any official source, that confirms Air Indias choice for Munich as their EU-Hub?

Anonymous said...

Looks like AI returned the coordinated slots. There are no more AI flights listed into/from MUC for the summer.
Did AI postpone their plans or is it even more - a change of mindset?