Gaurav's Blog

Bangalore- Gateway to South India?

Bangalore International Airport (BIA) has, in many of its promotional campaigns and adverts claimed it is the "Gateway to South India".  Let us verify that claim. An Airport can truly claim to be a gateway to South India, if it provides connectivity to more South Indian cities than its immediate competitors- In Bangalore's case, these are Hyderabad and Chennai and Kochi to a lesser extent. Bangalore's claim rings hollow, as it only connects 13 destinations (counting Chennai & Hyderabad) and in these terms is no better than Hyderabad and Chennai who connect 13 and 12 destinations each, respectively. 3 of the 13 destinations are infact 1-stop flights either via Hyderabad or via Kochi. The only 2 unique destinations (over HYD and MAA) from Bangalore are Agatti (which is a one-stop destination via Kochi and in danger of being withdrawn as it is operated by Kingfisher which is in financial doldrums) and Calicut.

Hyderabad has continued to focus on domestic connections and develop itself into a domestic hub with capacity to spare as an Airport that can effectively connect East to West traffic flows, South to North flows, South to West traffic flows to cities like Baroda, Ahmadabad and Aurangabad, as well as South to Central India traffic flows by taking advantage of capacity constraints of current Mumbai Airport.

Bangalore, on the other hand failed to do so, because it has lagged behind in developing capacity. A key to developing air services is to have developed Airport capacity in advanced, allowing time for Airline planners to plan induction of new aircraft and the resources that go into launching new routes.

On the International side, historically, bilateral agreements have left out Bangalore (and Hyderabad) as these were never planned as International Airports whereas Chennai was included in most of them, as the Southern Gateway city as part of the 4 gateway cities to India, the others being Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Given the slow pace of change in anything related to the government, this is a clear disadvantage in developing air services to either of these new Airports. Meanwhile, the situation is likely to get worse, as the development of the new Airport in Chennai and the second Airport at Navi Mumbai would take away reasons for Airlines to consider Bangalore as a 'gateway' city.

Bangalore has a large established market to North America with relatively higher yields (compare to Chennai and Hyderabad which have a higher percentage of VFR market pulling yields down). Hyderabad could not sustain many newly launched International services such as KLM, BA and Lufthansa. Despite this, unfortunately, for Bangalore, it lies just outside the operational range of the B 777-200LR/A340-500 Aircraft that is the only aircraft that can be considered for non-stops flight to US Gateway cities. At 17 plus hours, New York- Mumbai is already at the very edge of the available range that the aircraft offers with standard payloads and even when it is operationally feasible to operate this non-stop service, profitable operations is a far-fetched goal. Non-stop operations require a premium on fares being charged (fewer seats being flown longer, no cargo). Generally said, India is a low fare, high volume market. Even on regular mid-haul, via large hub flights, it is difficult to break even, leave alone breaking even on non-stops. What is more is that the customer does not find value in paying a premium for a non-stop, where a dozen other cheaper options are available without much sacrifice on elapsed time. Notwithstanding Kingfisher's immature, laughable belief in 2008 that it can use an A340-500 to connect Bangalore to San Francisco, realistically US market from Bangalore can only be addressed through a one-stop service either through Europe, or via Middle East or Far East.  This explains why European (and now Middle Eastern carriers) thrive at Bangalore (BA and Lufthansa both come in with a 744) and no US or Indian carrier has ever succeeded flying to/from Bangalore. The remaining traffic is carried to the US West coast via the Pacific and on Asian carriers like Singapore Airlines and Thai.

Some believe Bangalore's geography can be used to participate in the vast Australia-Europe market. This would have been an opportunity 40 years back. Today, with at least 7 major hubs and their respective airlines competing for that traffic, Bangalore's chances (with or without a hub carrier) are non-existent and delusional.    

All of the above factors, limits options for an Indian carrier to develop Bangalore as an International Hub. Not just this, the self sufficiency European & some Asian carriers to use Bangalore as a destination on their network, without needing any supporting feed/defeed from a local carrier, hinders the development of a domestic feeder carrier. So what really are the options Bangalore has?