Can Regional Aviation Finally Take Off In India?
6/26/202630 min
For decades, regional aviation in India has been a story of false starts, grounded ambitions and struggling airlines. But that may finally be changing.
India makes more than 4 billion intercity trips every year. Yet only 3% happen by air. That gap may be the single biggest untapped opportunity in Indian aviation — and airlines like Fly91 and aircraft maker ATR believe they are perfectly positioned to capture it.
In this episode of The Morning Brief, Anirban Chowdhury and ET's Forum Gandhi speak with Alexis Vidal, Chief Commercial Officer of ATR, and Manoj Chacko, Managing Director of Fly91, about why regional aviation has historically failed to scale, what has changed in India's smaller cities, and whether the economics finally work. From eliminating check-in entirely and operating with fuel costs at just 22% of revenue, to filling flights with business travellers in places few expected, the conversation explores the opportunities, bottlenecks and big bets shaping India's next aviation frontier.
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First 90 secondsAnirban Chaudhuri· Host0:00
[wings fluttering] [logo chiming] [lock clicking] Regional aviation has a chronic problem. It's always about to take off. [plane roaring] So globally, the segment has been slower to recover than mainstream aviation. Case in point, ATR, the world's only major turboprop manufacturer. It has recovered fast in the last two years, but is yet to touch its pre-COVID business. Also, while demand is bouncing back, global supply constraints make it impossible for production to keep up. In India, regional aviation has survived primarily as a chunk of a full-service pan Indian carrier's operations, Indigo or Air India, and for a while, SpiceJet. Standalone regional airlines haven't survived for too long. [gentle music] For the last two years, a couple of airlines have been rewriting the story and proving the business model. One of them is Fly 91. The Goa-based regional carrier operates six aircraft across 12 destinations, running 280 weekly flights. It has, in fact, surprisingly well-occupied flights to places like Jalgaon, Agatti, and Sindhudurg, and a passenger mix that has surprised even the airline. In this episode, my colleague, ET's aviation journalist Forum Gandhi, and I speak to its MD, Manoj