Airliners.net

Have I mis-read this thread, which appears to trend to the idea that these A330s will be used on long haul?

India is developing at a fast rate. It is a very large country and in my perception has no high speed trains and is apparently not planning any, and has a poor highway network? The solutions to these perceived problems are difficult. So air transport appears to be the only realistic option for India, but my perception is it that has too few airports and little spare capacity in those which are busiest. Remember the Air Canada inbound being shunted around whilst getting lower on fuel, I think on 6th October 2017.

So I presumed that the A330-800 will be used for internal flights, with some 300 passengers to avoid a system crash? A bit like LHR which we Brits know all about, but there are 4 other London airports of which at least 2 have spare runway capacity.

A bit off topic, but I saw yesterday night an Indigo 320 ( not sure cause it was dark) at Madrid airport...what was doing there?

Egerton wrote:

So air transport appears to be the only realistic option for India

I'm afraid you are terribly misinformed. Inefficient and slow they may be, but road and rail form the backbone of transport in India. Indian railways carry as many passengers in 5 days as all Indian domestic airlines in a year.

Kadish wrote:

A bit off topic, but I saw yesterday night an Indigo 320 ( not sure cause it was dark) at Madrid airport...what was doing there?

It must be a new manufactured aircraft on the way from Toulouse to Delhi . ( just my guess)

But why would it be spotted in MAD if it is flying from TLS to DEL?

NearMiss wrote:

I can see the orders for the A330neo going up once it starts regular service as the original A330 did once it started showing how good it was.

The A330 neo is up against the 787 this time, not a much heavier 772. It will have a niche to itself, the question is just how big is the niche.

Looks like Indigo might have to shell out big bucks for Air India, suddenly A330Neos chances has gotten brighter

Jet Airways, Air France-KLM, Delta consortium to bid for Air India

A consortium of Jet Airways, Air France-KLM and Delta Airlines understood to have expressed interest in the disinvestment of national carrier Air India, sources told PTI. Against this backdrop, sources said a consortium of three full services, including Jet Airways, are keen to put in their bid for the national carrier.

unrave wrote:

Egerton wrote:

So air transport appears to be the only realistic option for India

I'm afraid you are terribly misinformed. Inefficient and slow they may be, but road and rail form the backbone of transport in India. Indian railways carry as many passengers in 5 days as all Indian domestic airlines in a year.

Thanks. I was already aware that 'road and rail are the backbone of transport in India', thanks for confirming that. If as you say the Indian road and rail are 'inefficient and slow', you make my point for me. Please inform me of any examples of high speed trains, motorways, or new runways already built or planned to deal with fast safe long distance internal travel in the context of the Republic of India? And please, your solutions to the current difficulty of getting from A to B quickly, which in my view seems necessary to enhance prosperity?

Egerton wrote:

unrave wrote:

Egerton wrote:

So air transport appears to be the only realistic option for India

I'm afraid you are terribly misinformed. Inefficient and slow they may be, but road and rail form the backbone of transport in India. Indian railways carry as many passengers in 5 days as all Indian domestic airlines in a year.

Thanks. I was already aware that 'road and rail are the backbone of transport in India', thanks for confirming that. If as you say the Indian road and rail are 'inefficient and slow', you make my point for me. Please inform me of any examples of high speed trains, motorways, or new runways already built or planned to deal with fast safe long distance internal travel in the context of the Republic of India? And please, your solutions to the current difficulty of getting from A to B quickly, which in my view seems necessary to enhance prosperity?

You make it sound like we travel on Bullock Carts in India

FYI here is the list of expressways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expresswa ... d/Proposed

and we have Highspeed Railway beginning construction this year as well

Egerton wrote:

And please, your solutions to the current difficulty of getting from A to B quickly, which in my view seems necessary to enhance prosperity?

Where do you see the link between fast travel and prosperity?
for the US that made sense in a way because of vast empty stretches.
India less so.

More interesting is the average time to reach the next million people "your interest group" around you ?

Egerton wrote:

Thanks. I was already aware that 'road and rail are the backbone of transport in India', thanks for confirming that. If as you say the Indian road and rail are 'inefficient and slow', you make my point for me. Please inform me of any examples of high speed trains, motorways, or new runways already built or planned to deal with fast safe long distance internal travel in the context of the Republic of India? And please, your solutions to the current difficulty of getting from A to B quickly, which in my view seems necessary to enhance prosperity?

Air travel cannot replace road/rail because only a small fraction of Indians can afford to travel by air. Even after 20 years, the per capita air travel in India will be only 0.4 compared to more than 2 in the US currently.

Railways in India are slow an inefficient when compared to Europe, but government is investing tens of billions of dollars each year in roads and railways to improve the connectivity.

sibibom wrote:

Egerton wrote:

unrave wrote:

I'm afraid you are terribly misinformed. Inefficient and slow they may be, but road and rail form the backbone of transport in India. Indian railways carry as many passengers in 5 days as all Indian domestic airlines in a year.

Thanks. I was already aware that 'road and rail are the backbone of transport in India', thanks for confirming that. If as you say the Indian road and rail are 'inefficient and slow', you make my point for me. Please inform me of any examples of high speed trains, motorways, or new runways already built or planned to deal with fast safe long distance internal travel in the context of the Republic of India? And please, your solutions to the current difficulty of getting from A to B quickly, which in my view seems necessary to enhance prosperity?

You make it sound like we travel on Bullock Carts in India

FYI here is the list of expressways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expresswa ... d/Proposed

and we have Highspeed Railway beginning construction this year as well

From your Wikipedia quote: Currently, approximately 1,455.4 km of expressways are operational in India and India has one of lowest density of expressways in the world
That is hardly significant for a country the size of India. Even finishing the current projects under construction will only double that. There seem to be huge plans, but construction has to start someday or the plans stay just plans.

As you say high speed rail is just starting to be constructed, it will take years to have an impact

So to travel inside reasonable time limits, flying is about the only way in India.

mjoelnir wrote:

So to travel inside reasonable time limits, flying is about the only way in India.

The point is not many people can afford to fly. India is very, very poor country on per capita income basis.

And those are only expressways. India has vast network of highways of varying quality. I used to drive regularly on one of these highways between Bangalore and my hometown, a distance of 360 km in a bit more than 4 hours.

We are going off-topic people!!
Btw, I am pretty satisfied with road connectivity in India to go from anywhere to anywhere.
For a more realistic view of roads in India, look for "golden quadrilateral" which connects the 4 metros of India and all the cities lying in between.
Most of the goods are transported by rail/road only.

You might want to look at this as well:

India has a road network of over 6,603,293 kilometres (4,103,096 mi) as on 31 March 2018, the second largest road network in the world.[1] At 1.70 km of roads per square kilometre of land, the quantitative density of India's road network is higher than that of Japan (0.91) and the United States (0.67), and far higher than that of China (0.46), Brazil (0.18) or Russia (0.08).[1] Adjusted for its large population, India has approximately 4.63 km of roads per 1000 people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_road_network

And India has 280,000 KMs of highways.

unrave wrote:

mjoelnir wrote:

So to travel inside reasonable time limits, flying is about the only way in India.

The point is not many people can afford to fly. India is very, very poor country on per capita income basis.

But certainly more and more people can afford to fly, aided by both economic growth and improved efficiency. India is still far away from chinese levels of flights per capita, let alone european or even US levels. I'm not saying that HSR - or rail in general - and expressways aren't a viable mode of transportation as well but (a) The first HSR line is set to go into operation 2022 - 2023 (b) distances in India are still large. Air travel typically becomes very competitive on routes over 4 hours traveling time, i. e. ~ 400 km road or 700 km HSR (and less than that as the crow flies due to curved tracks/roads).

Egerton wrote:

So I presumed that the A330-800 will be used for internal flights, with some 300 passengers to avoid a system crash? A bit like LHR which we Brits know all about, but there are 4 other London airports of which at least 2 have spare runway capacity.

All the debate around the length of India's highways aside, you make a pertinent point. A WB on a trunk route like BOM-DEL could be a good idea. Particularly at an airport like BOM. Not sure how big the trade off on frequency v capacity would be but the idea has merit. I highly doubt CIDCO can get the new airport up and running by 2019.

unrave wrote:

I am usually quite optimistic about the growth of aviation in India and am a great fan of what IndiGo has done for aviation in India, but I am not quite convinced about the viability operating such a large widebody LCC fleet. Back in 2011 when 6E began their international operations, their first set of routes included non stops to SIN from DEL and BOM made possible by specially configured aircraft with additional fuel tanks. Aditya Ghosh proclaimed that in no time there would me multiple non stops on these routes. But both the routes were quite short lived and 6E currently operates to SIN only from MAA and BLR. I wonder how many could possibly be flown from DEL?

Plenty of target cities in S/ C Europe. Something that is essentially just out of range of A32XNEO. It would be v hard for ME3 to compete here; after all a stop reduction means saving 3-4 hrs in travel time.

News about Indigo getting a bunch of shiny new A330's may be exciting to some on the forum. Understandable.

But to some of us, its an eerie deja-vu kind of feeling. KF started out trying to be a Full service carrier with LCC cost - built around the idea of a single fleet type (A320) and single class service - something like a desi JetBlue. Within the year they had introduced Business Class cabins. Then they went out and bought a dozen ATR's giving up the single fleet idea. And in another 5 years they decided they had to get widebodies and go international! International flights were the great money pit which ultimately caused their demise. What started out as a great idea became a disaster. One wonders how it might have gone, if KF had stayed true to its original philosophy - Full Service, Single Class Carrier with a single fleet type. Alas we will never know.

Indigo has built its success on a single fleet type model as well. Thats about the only way an airline can save costs in Indian context given the relative low cost of catering and other parameters/infra being the same. And by all accounts they have built up a fine operation indeed.

But across the last 2 years, I see them going down the same cursed path that KF did in the past. They broke the single fleet type model by acquiring ATR's - which despite the PR hype doesnt seem to be working well at all. And now going out and getting A330's to go international?

Wish them luck! But I do not see this ending well!

There is a reason Southwest in the US or RyanAir in Europe have succeeded for so long where so many others have fallen by the wayside.

Those 2 airlines remained true to their core business model. Will it be different for Indigo? Well! Time will tell. Save this post and lets revisit this in 2021!

BawliBooch wrote:

News about Indigo getting a bunch of shiny new A330's may be exciting to some on the forum. Understandable.

But to some of us, its an eerie deja-vu kind of feeling. KF started out trying to be a Full service carrier with LCC cost - built around the idea of a single fleet type (A320) and single class service - something like a desi JetBlue. Within the year they had introduced Business Class cabins. Then they went out and bought a dozen ATR's giving up the single fleet idea. And in another 5 years they decided they had to get widebodies and go international! International flights were the great money pit which ultimately caused their demise. What started out as a great idea became a disaster. One wonders how it might have gone, if KF had stayed true to its original philosophy - Full Service, Single Class Carrier with a single fleet type. Alas we will never know.

Indigo has built its success on a single fleet type model as well. Thats about the only way an airline can save costs in Indian context given the relative low cost of catering and other parameters/infra being the same. And by all accounts they have built up a fine operation indeed.

But across the last 2 years, I see them going down the same cursed path that KF did in the past. They broke the single fleet type model by acquiring ATR's - which despite the PR hype doesnt seem to be working well at all. And now going out and getting A330's to go international?

Wish them luck! But I do not see this ending well!

Kingfisher in 2005 was a very different carrier in a very different market. 5 A380s, 5 A350s, 5 A332s, a much smaller domestic market, and a mixed up business model. I'm not sure much can be deduced from what they did when comparing them to Indigo. I would imagine in some respects Indigo is closer to AirAsia than they are to Kingfisher.

Antarius wrote:

HIA350 wrote:

the a330 neo is not dead "as some have speculated"

The 330 neo was never dead. The 338 neo likely is.

The issue is people read about HA cancelling and applied that logic to the whole type.

Considering it is the replacement for the A330-200, aren't the improvements of the A338 likely to make it into the tanker and other military versions of the A330?

PlanesNTrains wrote:

Kingfisher in 2005 was a very different carrier in a very different market. 5 A380s, 5 A350s, 5 A332s, a much smaller domestic market, and a mixed up business model. I'm not sure much can be deduced from what they did when comparing them to Indigo. I would imagine in some respects Indigo is closer to AirAsia than they are to Kingfisher.

The "5 of each kind" came much later in KF's short career. And their domestic model wasnt "mixedup" when they started. Precisely the point. The business model they started out with worked well. It got muddled later when they tried to do too many things. When they originally started out, it was as a single class, single type carrier. Still remember the press handouts given at launch. Very much the desi JetBlue. KF gave up the single fleet type idea with the ATR's - just like Indigo did last year. The Widebody induction was the last straw that broke the camels back.

AirAsia is again a very different model. Can Indigo setup a separate subsidiary airline "IndigoX" to operate the A330's internationally? Separate subsidiary will help isolate the domestic arm from the international. Dont think Indian law as it stands will allow that kind of setup.

BawliBooch wrote:

PlanesNTrains wrote:

KF gave up the single fleet type idea with the ATR's - just like Indigo did last year. The Widebody induction was the last straw that broke the camels back.

I thought they came with the Deccan acquisition. They had to rebrand Deccan 320s as KF Red. guess the bulk of the problems started with this acquisition with the intl ops provising the final straw.

I am not convinced about the viability of 6E's widebody operations, but drawing parallels between an airline that did not turn a profit for a single year and the best run airline in Indian aviation history is futile.

Kingfisher (may her fabulous soul RIP) never made money unlike indigo, not a single quarter. Indigo has been consistently making money and they know their business better than anyone else.

Kingfisher was in a hurry to be no.1 and world's best. They went international in year 3 (by buying Deccan, which itself was a basket case). They didn't have solid domestic base to begin with.

Indigo has been no.1 for probably 6 years, they grew very organically and seem ready for the next phase of their growth, which is international operations. They have been very smart about their international operations so far, even cutting some international route (like BKK at one point) when they didn't make enough money.

Indigo's confidence comes from the data they have. Interglobe was the on ticketing service provider for most Domestic carrier prior to 2007, this date helped them just walk away with the domestic market. Today they do the same for international carrier (like EK), they clearly have the data to prove there is a demand.

sibibom wrote:

Kingfisher (may her fabulous soul RIP) never made money unlike indigo, not a single quarter. Indigo has been consistently making money and they know their business better than anyone else.

They have been making money for a reason - they have stayed true to their original business model so far. Single fleet type, streamlined operations.

Will it work with multiple fleet types? The ATR's inducted last year - how are they doing? How have they impacted the profitability?

International operations are a whole different ball game. Will it work? Maybe it will!

How many airlines do we know who have seen enormous success as LCC's only to crash & burn when they abandoned their original model? Do we know any airline that has been a success at making this transition?

IndiGo's ATR operations only began in Dec 17. It is too early to know how well they have been doing. But SG seems to be doing not that bad with a mixed fleet. Just last year they placed an order for 50 additional Q400

Even jetBlue operates a mixed fleet - A320s and Embraers

BawliBooch wrote:

How many airlines do we know who have seen enormous success as LCC's only to crash & burn when they abandoned their original model? Do we know any airline that has been a success at making this transition?

Cebu Pacific and perhaps, WestJet

Pacific wrote:

BawliBooch wrote:

How many airlines do we know who have seen enormous success as LCC's only to crash & burn when they abandoned their original model? Do we know any airline that has been a success at making this transition?

Cebu Pacific and perhaps, WestJet

Air Asia, Lion Air...they seems to have learnt and are survived so far. Hell even Southwest is considering MOM.

sibibom wrote:

Air Asia, Lion Air...they seems to have learnt and are survived so far. Hell even Southwest is considering MOM.

Air Asia & others have setup subsidiaries with different AOC's to operate the widebodies. Can Indigo do that in India? Realistically, is it possible?

As for Southwest and MOM - We first heard speculative reports in 2015. The 797 is not even launched yet. Never say never - but I dont think Southwest will step out of the 737-only box for a long long time.

different AOC or not, its the same airline, with shared management and infrastructure. I think thats gotta do with getting the most benefit out of the laws of different countries.

If the aircraft order is approved, guess the future long haul route for IndiGo.

If the order indeed goes through and IndiGo is able to replicate its domestic success in long haul operations, it will become the largest LCC in Asia by far.

SQ789 wrote:

If the aircraft order is approved, guess the future long haul route for IndiGo.

as announced by them in earlier news, most of the future routes will be to Europe. They might start with something like DEL LGW or DEL ORL

My take on this,

The longhaul LCC market is yet an untested one, we have a few examples like Air Asia X [which has not been too succesful with the amount of route cancellations] and Norwegian & Scoot [which have been reasonably succesful]

The challenge 6E faces at the onset is that the Indian Passport is not the most accepted passport in most countries, the countries which give us Visa on Arrival and have a pax demand are very few [Indonesia and Thailand come to mind]
So it will be a real challenge, but if there is some one who can do it , it will be Indigo

Now the aircraft choice, from the article it is clear that if at all they order a widebody it will be a 338 neo, heres why

Airbus really needs a new Launch customer for the 338, and they will certainly offer 6E a good deal on price

Also if one is to look at the Level configuration of the 332 [same cabin dimensions as 338[, they manage to seat 314 pax [293y 21PY] and that too in an Airbus standard 8 abreast config, this i feel is more than enough for Indigo needs

I personally dont see an Order of 50 happening, we might see 10 to begin with a few options

Also someone mentioned that they should buy the Aircraft solely for Domestic routes like BOM DEL etc...this doesnt not make sense, no airline buys a Widebody solely for short routes as there are various maintenance costs associated with the engine cycles etc,
Not to mention Indigo will be getting their 321 neos this year which will be over 200 seats

Karan

Just to add, those privileged Indian nationals who can obtain visas for wealthier countries are not necessarily the appropriate market for an LCC; they may prefer an FSC, in fact "premium leisure" J or F class.

Citizens of wealthier countries can easily visit fellow wealthier countries. This is why backpackers can fly LCCs like Icelandair or Jetstar or Norwegian, while other leisure and business travellers can fly FSC carriers. Lack of visa restrictions vastly increases the ability to stimulate a market.

Given the enormous regional potential including ASEAN (beyond BKK/SIN), parts of Greater China, East Africa, Indian Ocean, Central Asia, Middle East (not only GCC), and Eastern Mediterranean, one could ask why Indigo is not considering the A321neoLR.

For example, this aircraft is precisely the vehicle which PR will use for MNL-DEL-MNL flights likely coming up.

It will be very difficult for IndiGo to go against Air Asia India in the SEA region, given their aggressive plans for expansion from India. Nobody does SEA as good as the Air Asia group

upwardfacing wrote:

Given the enormous regional potential including ASEAN (beyond BKK/SIN), parts of Greater China, East Africa, Indian Ocean, Central Asia, Middle East (not only GCC), and Eastern Mediterranean, one could ask why Indigo is not considering the A321neoLR.

For example, this aircraft is precisely the vehicle which PR will use for MNL-DEL-MNL flights likely coming up.

IndiGo have ordered 25 of them, with deliveries beginning next year.

unrave wrote:

It will be very difficult for IndiGo to go against Air Asia India in the SEA region, given their aggressive plans for expansion from India. Nobody does SEA as good as the Air Asia group

If they are, they haven't shown it so far. They have a fledgling operation at best.

Spiderguy252 wrote:

If they are, they haven't shown it so far. They have a fledgling operation at best.

That is because they haven't become eligible to fly international yet. I expect their primary focus going forward to be international while maintaining a domestic network to meet regulatory requirements.

You do need more international direct routes from India at a lower price and I can think only Indigo can do it or even Spicejet if they order some wide body aircrafts.

sibibom wrote:

Egerton wrote:

unrave wrote:

I'm afraid you are terribly misinformed. Inefficient and slow they may be, but road and rail form the backbone of transport in India. Indian railways carry as many passengers in 5 days as all Indian domestic airlines in a year.

Thanks. I was already aware that 'road and rail are the backbone of transport in India', thanks for confirming that. If as you say the Indian road and rail are 'inefficient and slow', you make my point for me. Please inform me of any examples of high speed trains, motorways, or new runways already built or planned to deal with fast safe long distance internal travel in the context of the Republic of India? And please, your solutions to the current difficulty of getting from A to B quickly, which in my view seems necessary to enhance prosperity?

You make it sound like we travel on Bullock Carts in India

FYI here is the list of expressways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expresswa ... d/Proposed

and we have Highspeed Railway beginning construction this year as well

Thanks. I deal in facts, the Wiki you quote states:

"Expressways are the highest class of roads in the Indian road network. They are six or eight-lane controlled-access highways where entrance and exit is controlled by the use of slip roads. Currently, approximately 1,455.4 km of expressways are operational in India. The National Highways Development Project by Government of India aims to expand the highway network and plans to add an additional 18,637 km (11,580 mi) of expressways by the year 2022."

May I compare other data? UK has 2,173 miles (3,497 km) of motorway and just over 10,261 miles (16,513 km) of railway. As is well known India is a nation of huge area, 3.287 million sq km, with compared with 242,000 sq km of the UK. My maths is dodgy, but does this make India 13 times larger than UK?

From up thread, YouGeeEIWhy post #30, the population of India is 1,324,17,354; 20 times that of UK which has 65,788,574. Similarly, UK has 2.65 airline passengers per capita of population, India has 0.14.

I am seeking to assess the real transport needs of India. It is good that India has lots of railways and roads, and is building more. It is good that India is year by year transforming the lives of its peoples. More prosperity means more travel. But it seems to me that India could do with a lot more airline seats, and given the runway issues mentioned earlier, it need bigger aeroplanes for domestic services.

Why is everyone implying that this potential A330NEO order is for long haul? The South Asia market along with Middle East and Southeast Asia is a huge market and India is not exactly building runways and expanding airports left and right like China is, for example.
I had the pleasure of flying IndiGo just a year ago and I found their operation to be outstanding. However, busing is rampant due to lack of terminal jetways. Busing an in particular when boarding thru only 1 door as I experienced in India (as opposed to 2 doors like they do in Europe), was very inefficient. It took about 1 hour from the time they called for boarding until everyone was seated on the plane. That is very poor aircraft utilization for a LCC.

There aren't many domestic routes that can support an A330 service.

unrave wrote:

There aren't many domestic routes that can support an A330 service.

Maybe not yet. But with growing air traffic that might change in the (near) future?

Olddog wrote:

Just curious: why my post on the same subject one hour ago was deleted?

Could it be because this threat is being started by a moderator? I started several threads myself and they where all allowed and then one thread wasn't, but that one started later over again by a moderator; I guess it was a too important issue given the attention it got and there was something with the rephrasing of a word in the headline. Pity though for everyone who is comes with a first thread with a carefully found on topic breaking news or story and then is being overruled. Maybe there is something written about it in the rules somewhere on this site. I know you always have to formulate a good opening with question or opinion.

airbazar wrote:

Why is everyone implying that this potential A330NEO order is for long haul? T

I would first expect them to experiment with A321, if they really want larger aircraft for domestic routes ...

airbazar wrote:

Why is everyone implying that this potential A330NEO order is for long haul? The South Asia market along with Middle East and Southeast Asia is a huge market and India is not exactly building runways and expanding airports left and right like China is, for example.
I had the pleasure of flying IndiGo just a year ago and I found their operation to be outstanding. However, busing is rampant due to lack of terminal jetways. Busing an in particular when boarding thru only 1 door as I experienced in India (as opposed to 2 doors like they do in Europe), was very inefficient. It took about 1 hour from the time they called for boarding until everyone was seated on the plane. That is very poor aircraft utilization for a LCC.

1 hour is unusually long IMHO. Busing is very much an Indian airline thing. They want the cheaper fees for busing - period. They do not value jet bridges. I've noticed the same thing in Brazil. They, like Indian airports, will have many open bridges but still park airlines in remote stands. Super annoying but it is what it is (don't know how pax stand it during the monsoons).

CaliguyNYC wrote:

(don't know how pax stand it during the monsoons).

Sharing an experience during peak monsoon season !!
I was travelling BOM-BLR somewhere in July. Boarding the bus was not an issue, since it was under the cover of terminal's roof.
While alighting though, we first waited for 15 mins for the rain to slow down, in vain. Finally, the passengers were literally told to run from the bus to stairs. A new passenger would alight from bus only after the earlier one reached the stairs. The stairs were covered.
All the IndiGo staff were wearing a raincoat. Seems like they were trained to work in rain.
On entering the aircraft, I found this:


My first live experience of condensation inside aircraft !!

Overall, it was not how someone would like their boarding to be, but as a first timer, it was fun!!