An Analysis and Quick Method of Estimating Passenger and Aircraft Demand for Feeder Airline Services in India

The recent and the proposed entry of new airlines both in the ‘no-frills’ and in the “full service” categories has completely changed the aviation scenario in India. Obviously this explosive increase in capacity will have a profound effect on the economy of the airlines both in the short term as well as in the long term. A growth of over 25% per annum in passenger traffic may not be sustainable for long; thus galloping increase in capacity may result in mergers and strategic alliances of airlines on one side and closing down of some of the airlines on the other side. A point to be noted is that most of the new entrants also operate in the major trunk routes and serve the metros and the major cities. What appears to have not been tapped is the equally large potential in the regional and short haul sectors, which serve major, and small city pairs and also act as feeders to the major hubs. Realizing the importance of this, the government in its new civil aviation policy has given thrust to regional/ short-haul air travel. In this paper, an attempt is made to review the hierarchy of airline networks in India with respect to trunk, major and feeder routes. The air passenger traffic carried in each sector in terms of revenue passenger kilometers (RPK) is compared with upper class rail traffic. The present status of feeder airline services in India is outlined. It is pertinent to study the passenger traffic demand in these feeder routes as compared to upper class rail traffic as some percentage of upper class rail passengers are willing to shift to air travel due to marginal difference between airfare and upper class rail fare. The future RPKs are forecasted based on the actual RPKs (1999-2004 data) and the estimated RPKs (1999-2008) of earlier market survey. A suitable aircraft size for airline operations in these feeder routes is arrived at based on existing air traffic data by a simple method. A macroscopic measure is used to determine the aircraft demand by assuming average block speed and utilization for each aircraft type. A sensitivity analysis was carried out for various levels of traffic growth keeping in view the sharp increase of air travel in recent years and further growth in air traffic fuelled by feeder sector as the hinterland opens up industry, services and tourism. The approach followed in this report will help for assessing alternative fleet scenarios and possibly reflects a quick method of estimation of passenger traffic, aircraft and fleet size for serving feeder air network in India