Inside Air India’s 2 Daily Boeing 787 Flights To Australia
96% of its Australian passengers only flew to/from India. (En route to Sydney when writing.)
96% of its Australian passengers only flew to/from India.
Air India is one of three airlines offering nonstop flights between South Asia and Australia. It joins SriLankan and Qantas, the latter launched Sydney-Bengaluru in mid-September. Air India has served Australia for over nine years and now has 2 daily flights. There’s a 1 daily operation from Delhi, its main hub, with routes to both Sydney and Melbourne.
Air India to Australia
India’s flag carrier launched flights Down Under in August 2013, with Sydney and Melbourne both served. It operated triangularly: Delhi-Melbourne-Sydney-Delhi and Delhi-Sydney-Melbourne-Delhi. Both were de-tagged in 2016, and each operated on a standalone basis.
The current schedule is as follows, with all times local:
- Delhi to Sydney: AI302, 14:15-08:10+1 (12h 25m)
- Delhi to Melbourne: AI308, 14:20-08:00+1 (12h 10m)
- Sydney to Delhi: AI301, 10:15-17:40 (12h 55m)
- Melbourne to Delhi: AI309, 10:45-18:10 (12h 55m)
Both routes use 256-seat 787-8s, just as they have throughout the past ten years. This is Air India’s second-smallest widebody, behind only the 777-200LR, and its least premium widebody. They have no first class seats, while there are 18 seats in business (against 35 for the 777) and 238 in economy.
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220,000+ passengers so far this year
Between January and September 2022, Air India carried approximately 220,000 roundtrip passengers on its Australia flights, according to booking data. That was up by about 44% over the same period in 2019, the result of higher frequencies (1 daily) to both Australian cities.
Analyzing booking data shows that, in the first nine months of 2022, the vast majority of passengers (around 96%) traveled between Australia and India. Only four in 100 passengers transited beyond India, with a small number to the UK, France, Germany, the UAE, Israel, Nepal, and more.
It is because flights weren’t, and aren’t, available on a two-way basis, at least not with competitive times. For example, while there’s a quick 90-minute wait in Delhi en route from London Heathrow to Sydney, it’s nine hours on the return. It’s generally the case that there’s a quick wait in one direction and much longer in the other.
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Photo: Getty Images.
Australia to India
It means that Air India focuses far less on those ultra-competitive markets and far more on where it’s dominant: India. Indeed, Australia-India is a fast-growing market. Ignoring the temporary impacts of the pandemic, India-to-Australia traffic has grown significantly in recent years, aided by the large Indian diaspora, student demand, tourism, and business travel.
Earlier in 2022, Tourism Australia said they expect one million arrivals from India by 2030, and that’s just in one direction. If achieved, India would be Australia’s third-largest source of tourists.
Photo: Getty Images.
Where did passengers go?
No wonder Air India appears happy to concentrate on its home market. Booking data from January-September 2022 shows that around 155,000 of its 220,000 Australian passengers (seven in every ten) were point-to-point to/from Delhi and Mumbai. The rest transited Delhi, with the top 10 origins and destinations as follows:
- Hyderabad over Delhi to/from Sydney
- Mumbai-Sydney
- Ahmedabad-Sydney
- Ahmedabad-Melbourne
- Mumbai-Melbourne
- Hyderabad-Melbourne
- Amritsar-Melbourne
- Amristar-Sydney
- Vadodara-Sydney
- Bengaluru-Sydney
Have you flown Air India between India and Australia? If so, share your experiences in the comments.