On August 7, IndiGo operated its first nonstop flight from India's financial capital, Mumbai, to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. Batik Air Indonesia will begin flights between Medan and Chennai later this week. For two countries as large as India and Indonesia, with longstanding ties and expanding trade, it is remarkable that connectivity has been, to say the least, subpar.
Indonesia ranks seventh in India's imports, accounting for 4.02 percent of India's imports. Two percent of India's total exports are sent to Indonesia, but there is no direct connection between the two nations.
As both IndiGo and airlines within the Air India group have publicly stated that international expansion will be their primary focus in the future, the immediate connections could be those with high trade but poor connectivity.
There are six countries that appear on both the list of the top 10 countries from which India imports and the list of the top 10 countries to which India exports. The United States of America, the United Arab Emirates, China, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia are included. In addition, the top exporting countries for India are the Netherlands, Bangladesh, the United Kingdom, and Germany, while India imports from Russia, South Korea, Iraq, and Australia.
According to data provided by OAG Aviation exclusively for this article, there is little correlation between trade volume and connectivity. There are 18,051 weekly seats between India and the United States, but 1,31,418 weekly seats between India and Dubai alone. When all UAE airports are combined, the number of available seats per week increases to 2,27,194 one-way. Singapore, on the other hand, has 55,922 seats per week in each direction. There are 55,683 weekly seats each way between India and Saudi Arabia.
There are other factors that contribute to driving traffic, in addition to trade. Migration from South India to the Middle East is a significant factor in the connectivity between the two countries. The Middle Eastern airlines also have a significant presence in India to feed their global network, relying on a combination of superior products and the dearth of direct flights by Indian carriers.
The Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) regulates international flights.While the United States and India have an open skies agreement, the one between India and the United Kingdom is frequency-restricted and the one between India and Dubai is seats-per-week-restricted.
Multiple countries have requested additional seats over the years, but India has consistently rebuffed these requests, prioritising the growth of domestic airlines.
Indian carriers do not fly to Russia and Iraq, two of the top 10 importing and exporting nations, while connectivity to Indonesia has just begun. As Air India begins receiving aircraft from its massive order and IndiGo plans its expansion, will these voids be filled?
Comments