On 28 July, Qatar Airways confirmed that it was only interested in buying a stake (up to 49% if its CEO Akbar Al Baker gets his way) in Guragon-headquartered (just outside Delhi) LCC IndiGo, and not its fellow Indian airline SpiceJet. The following day, a statement on IndiGo’s website seemed to suggest that a stake was not up for sale, with phrases like ‘completely baseless’ and ‘no discussion’ being used in the rhetoric. However, anna.aero’s data elves are too long in the tooth to believe any of that smoke and mirrors treatment, with these public flirtations between airlines more often than not ending up in marriage (and sometimes divorce).
So what would a Qatar Airways and IndiGo wedding mean in terms of the two carriers’ networks, in particular between the Indian and Middle Eastern markets. Interestingly, the Indian LCC does not currently offer any services from India to Qatar Airways’ hub in Doha. However, the LCC does operate 77 weekly frequencies to two other Middle Eastern hubs.
Whether IndiGo will be ‘encouraged’ to shift some of that Dubai capacity to Doha is unclear at this stage (probably unlikely as these routes are often determined by labour and VFR traffic flows), but naturally Qatar Airways and Doha Airport, both of which are part of the Qatar Airways Group, would be seeking to maximise the benefits of any deal that was signed. Any such move would make a small but palpable dent in Dubai’s weekly seat count – IndiGo currently offers 10,500 weekly one-way seats from Dubai, around 1% of the hubs total capacity (w/c 4 August 2015). By comparison, the 1,050 weekly seats IndiGo has available from Muscat does not even reach 1% of the 145,672 total from the Omani capital city.
03/08/15 anna.aero
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So what would a Qatar Airways and IndiGo wedding mean in terms of the two carriers’ networks, in particular between the Indian and Middle Eastern markets. Interestingly, the Indian LCC does not currently offer any services from India to Qatar Airways’ hub in Doha. However, the LCC does operate 77 weekly frequencies to two other Middle Eastern hubs.
Whether IndiGo will be ‘encouraged’ to shift some of that Dubai capacity to Doha is unclear at this stage (probably unlikely as these routes are often determined by labour and VFR traffic flows), but naturally Qatar Airways and Doha Airport, both of which are part of the Qatar Airways Group, would be seeking to maximise the benefits of any deal that was signed. Any such move would make a small but palpable dent in Dubai’s weekly seat count – IndiGo currently offers 10,500 weekly one-way seats from Dubai, around 1% of the hubs total capacity (w/c 4 August 2015). By comparison, the 1,050 weekly seats IndiGo has available from Muscat does not even reach 1% of the 145,672 total from the Omani capital city.
03/08/15 anna.aero
