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No IndiGo flights will be
available on the Mumbai-Bangkok route from March
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IndiGo is
withdrawing its Mumbai-Singapore and Delhi-Singapore flights as part of its
route-rationalisation exercise. High fuel costs and intense competition are
said to be the reason behind the move. The airline will redeploy its planes to
start new services from Hyderabad and Chennai to Singapore.
IndiGo is yet to inform travel agents. The
airline is not accepting web bookings on Singapore flights from Mumbai and
Delhi beyond March. Also, no flights are available on the Mumbai-Bangkok route
from March.
The airline made
its global foray in September 2011, connecting Delhi with Dubai. Gradually, it
added flights to Dubai, Bangkok, Muscat (Oman) and Singapore from Mumbai and
Dubai.
With its low fares and stress on arriving
and departing on time, the airline was successful in luring business from
established carriers. However, intense competition and a limited distribution
network in Singapore has impacted the airline, industry sources said. It does
not use the global distribution system that full-service carriers use to sell
and distribute tickets.
Air India, Jet Airways and Singapore
Airlines have daily flights from Mumbai and Delhi to Singapore. From Mumbai,
Singapore Airlines operates three daily flights and from Delhi it has two.
IndiGo is the only low-cost carrier serving the two routes.
The airline said, "IndiGo is not
shutting the Bangkok or Singapore operations. We will soon start the
Chennai-Singapore route, and then the Hyderabad-Singapore one. IndiGo has
increased its frequency on the Delhi-Bangkok route to double daily and started
the Kolkata-Bangkok route.''
At the launch of Delhi-Singapore flight in
September 2011 IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh had said airline plans to add services
to Singapore from Chennai and Kolkata within the next few months. Services from
other Indian cities including Bangalore and Hyderabad are also under
consideration but the initial priority will be Chennai and Kolkata. Ghosh has
also indicated of increasing capacity on the Delhi-Singapore and
Mumbai-Singapore sectors, according to a Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation
report.
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