Why Air India Express’ MAX 8 could break IndiGo’s stranglehold on India skies

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Tata group won the bid for Air India in 2021 and took control of the airline in January 2022. It will soon be two years since the control moved to the Tatas. The airline has placed a large order, made changes to its offering, launched new routes, and operationalised its grounded planes as visible signs.

There definitely is a lot which is being done but not visible to outsiders. Amidst this, the first of the planes from the new mega order started arriving this year. Under the government, the airline remained underinvested.

It was two-pronged, the hardware quality suffered for the mainline airline and the lack of planes became a problem for Air India Express, the profitable low-cost arm. The MAX series of Boeing has also experienced turbulent times with a long grounding post the two deadly crashes. Boeing kept producing the MAX, and that meant it had a large inventory.

With airlines like Jet Airways going bust, SpiceJet not in a position to take planes and Chinese carriers not inducting MAX meant that Boeing had a large inventory, referred to as white tails. The white tails are often available cheaper and certainly available faster, especially during times of supply chain issues the world over. One downside at times though is the lack of money that an airline can make from sale and leaseback transactions.

As the first of the aircraft started commercial operations and more got operational over time, a look at the network, which is in operation and announced, shows that there is a pattern. Most of the deployment is such that it breaks the monopoly of IndiGo. Air India Express deployed the MAX 8 on Bengaluru-Mangalore, Bengaluru-Kannur, Bengaluru-Trivandrum, Bengaluru-Calicut and Delhi-Gwalior routes.