Mr.dreamer81

State of the Aviation nation Winter Edit Next Sunday (25th October) marks the start of the IATA winter schedule. This also comes bang in the middle of the festive season leading to year end - generally a peak period for flying. I give less credence to the official schedule shared by the DGCA and track instead the flights put on sale by the airlines. ✈️I have been tracking flights offered for sale by Indian carriers over the last several years (4-5 times an year given the multiple peaks and troughs) and November 2026 will be a significant low from the perspective of departures and hence passengers, giving one indication of the health of the underlying discretionary economy ✈️Headline - at a top 20 airport level (>90% of all flights), the total domestic departures by the big 5 airlines (IndiGo, Air India and Air India Express, Akasa and Spicejet), show a 7% decline vs flights offered at the same time the previous year (last week of November in both periods, eliminates any short term festival special flight bias). ✈️It is lower than May 26 as well by about 2% and lower than December 2024 as well. This is despite significant capacity addition and new airports like Navi Mumbai and Jewar entering the scene. This decline is across the board - Lower at slot constrained airports like Mumbai and Pune but sharp everywhere else. ✈️To be fair, the decline in seats will be lower than the decline in departures due to capacity upguaging (ATR -> A320 -> A321) and aircraft reconversion (IX & QP have increased seat counts of their existing max aircraft) ✈️Goa Mopa and Jaipur are the worst impacted reflecting airline thinking with their data on high fares impacting leisure travel. But the decline is secular & barring Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru & Pune, is in double digits everywhere ✈️Frequency cuts impact both metro - metro routes as well as metro - tier 2 routes. In this high fuel cost and depreciated rupee environment, airlines will protect their most profitable routes and cut everything else which is why barring Akasa, every other airline has cut back and in the Air India group, the lower cost lower fare Air India Express is picking up a growing share of domestic flying ✈️One final point on the green field airports - it is clear that passenger preference stays with the old airport - whether it's BOM (vs NMI), GOI (vs GOX) or DEL (vs DXN) - all the greenfield airports are down sequentially in terms of departures vs this summer. It is creditable that NMI is in the top 10 but there is a massive gap between that airport and the next highest which is Pune (PNQ). DXN is not even in the top 30 right now.