India's One-Airline State (indiadispatch.com)
(Wednesday July 30, 2025 @03:00AM (msmash)
from the flying-solo dept.)
- Reference: 0178510684
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/30/0612248/indias-one-airline-state
- Source link: https://indiadispatch.com/p/indigo
An anonymous reader shares an analysis:
> In most major aviation markets, including the U.S. and Europe, competition is an oligopolistic affair, with several large airlines competing for market share. India's domestic sector, however, is [1]increasingly characterized by the ascent of a single airline .
>
> Low-cost carrier IndiGo has achieved an extraordinary concentration of the market, capturing approximately 64.4% of all passenger traffic as of May. More strikingly, the airline operates with a near-monopoly on 66% of its domestic routes, facing little to no direct competition in a significant portion of its network.
>
> This position is the culmination of a decade-long expansion that saw the exit of rivals like Jet Airways and GoAir. Today, its remaining competitors continue to struggle; SpiceJet's domestic market share has fallen to just 2% while it operates a reduced fleet of only 19 aircraft. Air India, despite its acquisition by the Tata Group in 2022, has been slow in its restructuring and continues to cede domestic ground, with the flag carrier remaining unprofitable.
[1] https://indiadispatch.com/p/indigo
> In most major aviation markets, including the U.S. and Europe, competition is an oligopolistic affair, with several large airlines competing for market share. India's domestic sector, however, is [1]increasingly characterized by the ascent of a single airline .
>
> Low-cost carrier IndiGo has achieved an extraordinary concentration of the market, capturing approximately 64.4% of all passenger traffic as of May. More strikingly, the airline operates with a near-monopoly on 66% of its domestic routes, facing little to no direct competition in a significant portion of its network.
>
> This position is the culmination of a decade-long expansion that saw the exit of rivals like Jet Airways and GoAir. Today, its remaining competitors continue to struggle; SpiceJet's domestic market share has fallen to just 2% while it operates a reduced fleet of only 19 aircraft. Air India, despite its acquisition by the Tata Group in 2022, has been slow in its restructuring and continues to cede domestic ground, with the flag carrier remaining unprofitable.
[1] https://indiadispatch.com/p/indigo
"despite its acquisition by the Tata Group" (Score:3)
Root cause found. See also: JLR (Jaguar Land Rover).
Re: (Score:2)
Not quite. They may be screwing Landrover but the TATA group absolutely dominates all other areas they touch domestically in India which makes the Air India ownership and lack of dominance of the local routes there a bit of an enigma.
We had an interesting situation recently where I had to travel from Pune to Bengaluru with colleagues. Their corporate travel agent had an India profile, mine an EU profile so IndiGo didn't come up as an option since internationally the profiles favour the flag carriers. Their