IndiGo, the country’s largest airline, is expecting growth in aircraft addition to its fleet to be lower in FY25 as compared to FY24, reckoning more than one aircraft inclusion every week.
The low-cost carrier, with a market share of more than 60% of the domestic market, said in a presentation on Friday that the growth in capacity for FY25 is expected to be in ‘early double digits’. For FY24 this guidance was ‘north of mid-teens’.
In February 2024, IndiGo said that it was expecting around 12% capacity growth in the March quarter on a year-over-year basis. With that, IndiGo will be exceeding its original guidance for FY24 to deliver a growth of more than 20% as compared to FY23 2023.
As of the end of February the company had 366 aircraft while at the end of FY23 its fleet strength stood at 304. An ‘early double digit’ growth could mean the airline closing FY25 with a fleet of 406-420 aircraft.
Airbus, which has a near-monopoly of IndiGo’s current fleet and future orders, notified airlines of delivery delays scheduled in 2024 and 2025, Reuters reported last month. IndiGo has 960 aircraft on order. It also claimed that it is ‘poised to become 600+’ aircraft carrier by 2030.
Growing uncertainty over meeting delivery targets of aircraft by their manufacturers owing to challenges within the supply chain and regulatory hurdles is also leading to airlines refraining from sharing their aircraft induction plan.
Responding to FE, Vinay Dube, CEO, Akasa Air, said, “We stopped providing guidance on future aircraft deliveries six-eight months ago. We are growing by tens of percent almost, irrespective of whether there is one more or less (aircraft). We tend to stay away from providing guidance because they tend to be distracting.”
Low-cost carrier Akasa, the newest to start international operations, has a fleet strength of 24 aircraft and 202 aircraft on order. The company is aiming to expand international operations with the new additions to its fleet in FY25.
Since the grounding of Go First in May last year, there has been a sharp increase in air fares as demand for air travel rose amid supply crunch. In the upcoming summer schedule which starts from March 31, only a 2.3% rise is scheduled in weekly domestic flights to 24,275, compared to the winter schedule.
Akasa will push its weekly domestic departures by 14% to 903. IndiGo will be operating nearly 14% more flights at 13,050 flights per week in the summer schedule while Air India will increase its weekly departures by just under 5% to 2,278.
IndiGo added 10 destinations in FY24 to end with 115 and hopes to replicate that record in FY25. In the calendar year 2023, IndiGo became the first Indian airline to serve 100 million passengers.
