A Look At The Performance of Air India’s Exclusive European Routes Between April-June 2023

By Singh, Published on August 30th, 2023 in News

With over 14 non-stop scheduled routes between India and Europe, offering upto 77x weekly departing services or about 19,712 weekly departing seats from 6 cities across India, Air India has continued to impressively strengthen and establish it’s presence in various major European markets over the past 12 months.

The airline as of now continues to enjoy exclusivity on 9 of it’s 14 routes to Europe, these include:

● London Gatwick-Amritsar
● London Gatwick Ahmedabad
● London Gatwick-Goa
● London Gatwick-Cochin
● Birmingham-Amritsar
● Birmingham-Delhi
● Milan-Delhi
● Vienna-Delhi
● Copenhagen-Delhi

These routes account for nearly 65% of Air India’s European network, however the airline has just over 36% of the weekly departing services on these routes.

With 5 of these 9 routes completely point-to-point from the secondary cities of ATQ, AMD, GOI & COK, here’s a quick analysis of the performance of these routes:

• The Gatwick-Cochin route was the top performer in terms of average Passenger Load Factor (PLF), achieving an impressive average PLF of approximately 93.33% during the quarter.

• Following closely, the Gatwick-Ahmedabad route achieved an average PLF of 89.18%, while the Gatwick-Goa route recorded an average PLF of about 82.57%.

• The Birmingham-Amritsar route secured the 4th spot with an average PLF of 81.73%, while the Milan-Delhi route also followed closely with an average PLF of approximately 80.94%.

• The Copenhagen-Delhi route took the 6th spot with an average PLF of 79.86%, trailed by the Birmingham-Delhi route at 79.23%, and the Gatwick-Amritsar route at 77.15%.

• The Vienna-Delhi route was the least performing exclusive route for the airline, registering an average PLF of just over 70.42%.

Overall, Air India achieved an average passenger load factor of approximately 81.60% on it’s exclusive routes to Europe, deploying about 186,000 seats during the quarter.

Interestingly, despite Delhi’s significance as a major hub for the airline, benefiting from feeder markets, routes to Birmingham, Copenhagen, and Vienna experienced slightly lower passenger load factors, hovering just below 80%.

Notably, Amritsar, Air India’s 3rd top market for UK operations, saw an average passenger load factor of about 80% on both London Gatwick and Birmingham routes. The Amritsar-Birmingham route outperformed the Delhi-Birmingham route in terms of both traffic and passenger load factor.

Air India’s commendable performance in the first three months of operations at London Gatwick, particularly on the Cochin and Ahmedabad routes, is remarkable. Even with the seasonality factor of these Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) markets, all routes demonstrated strong performance.

Note: The Above Figures Are Approximate & May Contain Certain Inaccuracies.

Data Source: DGCA, UK CAA