The demise of AirBerlin at the end of 2017 was quickly offset by the rise of easyJet, Eurowings and others. At Indiatwo months after the grounding of 120 Jet AirwaysFor the time being, no airline has managed to mitigate the effects of this disappearance - even if only partially.
Jet Airways was in fact the biggest player in international passenger transport in India. Its market share in traffic between India and the rest of the world reached 18% at the beginning of 2018, a share that eroded throughout last year to end up at the beginning of 2019 at 13.5%. The carrier offered 641 daily flights at the beginning of 2018. In January 2019, this number was still 556 flights per day before ending at the end of March at 180 frequencies.
There is virtually no hope of Jet Airways returning to service. Two investors - again including Etihad Airways - have given up for good, in the face of huge debts...
Air fares are therefore soaring. Especially as only Air India remains in the running as an Indian carrier on international routes. According to the Indian travel portal MakeMyTrip Ltd, fares from India to Dubai, London, New YorkSingapore and Bali rose from 4% to 32% in the first quarter of 2019 compared with the previous year. In May and June, due to strong demand, prices to London or the United States jumped, the former by more than 35% and the latter by more than 20%, according to data from online travel agency Yatra.com. On domestic routes, prices are also tumbling, with an average increase of 20%.
Unfortunately, this situation is set to continue until the autumn. Delta Air Lines will be launching a Bombay-New York route in October, Virgin Atlantic will be positioning itself on the London-Bombay route at the same time, while Air France and KLM have decided to increase their capacity to India by 25% for the coming winter season, with KLM opening an Amsterdam-Bangalore route - previously served by Jet Airways.
The Gulf airlines are in the starting blocks to increase their services. But they are coming up against the freeze on air capacity to the Middle East imposed by the Modi government. Now that the Indian elections are over, the government could be more flexible.
Another hope: the delivery next year to the company Vistara - a joint venture between the industrial and financial conglomerate Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines - of six long-haul Boeing 787s. They should serve at least one or two cities in Europe.
Christian Scherer, Chief Commercial Officer of Airbus, said during the Annual General Meeting of IATA that the capacity left by Jet should be replaced by single-aisle aircraft of the A321neo type with a long range. " A company like the low-cost IndiGo could thus launch non-stop flights to Europe without taking the costly and riskier decision of integrating wide-body aircraft into its fleet. "he explained to journalists.
