Flight Friday: Focus On India's Aircraft Orders

Credit: Takatoshi Kurikawa / Alamy Stock Photo

With the large number of Indian operators announcing orders at the Paris Air Show, this week’s Flight Friday looks at the Indian market.

With the Tata Group’s acquisition of Air India, Air India Express, AirAsia India and Vistara, we have combined the total number of flights (cycles) together to see how the group compares to the country’s other large operator IndiGo.

IndiGo has the greatest number of flights in May 2023, with over 56,000 flights, which is 58% of the flights that are represented in this dataset. IndiGo announced a huge 500 Airbus A320neo family order at Paris, leading to the airline having 970+ aircraft on order.

 

The collective Tata Group would be in in overall second place, with a little over 31,000 flights in May 2023, which is a little under 32% of the flights represented. Air India added orders for 470 aircraft plus 70 options to their orderbook, which firmed up their earlier 2023 announcement that they would buy a significant number of aircraft.

The remaining Indian operators all operated less than 6,000 flights each in May 2023 and the well-publicized issues for GoAir (marketing name Go First) is illustrated by how their flights just drop off, having operated as many as 9,000 flights in December 2021.

The Indian market has long held “potential” for the aviation industry. Ordering aircraft is a start to realizing this potential. However, the infrastructure needed must still be put into place.

This data was put together using Aviation Week’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization data tool.

Daniel Williams

Based in the UK, Daniel is the Manager of Fleet, Flight and Forecast data for Aviation Week Network. Prior to joining Aviation Week in 2017, Daniel held a number of industry positions analyzing fleet data.

FlightFriday

Flight Friday is compiled using data from Aviation Week Intelligence Network’s (AWIN) Tracked Aircraft Utilization module, the most comprehensive and accurate solution for global tracking of aircraft utilization. 

Based on recorded flight movements from ADS-B data, combined with AWIN’s robust fleet intelligence, users gain insight into the aircraft’s actual versus reported movement, down to the tail number. This unique solution provides users a more up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of aircraft utilization.