About one-third of Air India Express' total passengers come through connections from Air India flights, which is a 'very large' share for a low-cost carrier, Air India Express Managing Director Aloke Singh said on Thursday.
Air India Express currently has a one-way codeshare partnership with its parent airline. This allows Air India to sell seats on Air India Express flights through its own booking channels, enabling passengers to book a single itinerary that includes flights from both airlines.
However, the reverse -- Air India Express selling seats on Air India flights -- is not yet possible as the process is 'more complicated' and system integration remains a 'challenge', Singh explained.
Asked about the proportion of traffic coming through Air India's network, Singh said, "It is large, and it is growing rapidly. So today, at the group level, almost one-third of our total traffic is connecting. This is a very large number for a low-cost airline."
Air India Express primarily focuses on routes connecting metro cities with Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities within India, with very little overlap with Air India's route network.
"The overlap would probably not be more than five to seven per cent in terms of city pairs," Singh said.
Singh mentioned Air India Express has grown roughly 25 per cent year-on-year for the last three years in terms of capacity. The airline currently has about 110 planes in its fleet.
"We aim to double the fleet in the next four to five years from what we are today," he added.
Today, about 50 per cent of the airline's plans are deployed on domestic routes while the remaining are deployed on international routes.
-- Deepak Patel, Business Standard
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