Under the hub-and-spoke model, airlines deliver passengers from spoke airports to a hub from where they are flown out to other hubs. From these other hubs, they travel further to their final destinations.
For example, up to 70% of Indians boarding an Emirates flight fly beyond the airline’s Dubai hub to destinations in Europe, Americas and other parts of the globe; the balance 30% Dubai-bound travellers makes up the point-to-point traffic. India has been concerned that foreign airlines have been scooping up Indian travellers using this model.
Point-to-point flights, on the other hand, focus solely on origin and destination airports. This would allow airlines—and flyers—to travel directly between specific Indian and global destinations rather than taking a stopover.
“I am more than happy for any country to come in and get point-to-point traffic beyond five-six hours’ flying radius; I welcome it. It is not only for Indian carriers, it is also for international carriers —why should you not be able to fly directly to Europe or to the US?” Scindia said.
Countries like the UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Singapore and Malaysia have frequently requested India for more flying rights. However, New Delhi is not in favour of granting more flying rights for countries that have built aviation hubs by sourcing traffic from India. Any increase in foreign flying rights on the hub-and-spoke model might make things difficult for Indian carriers that are starting to expand globally on the back of record orders.
The government’s focus is on increasing flying rights only in point-to-point traffic, a strategy that Indian carriers like Air India that have international expansion plans have welcomed.
The strategy to restrict foreign airlines to point-to-point traffic aligns with the government’s plan to make India an aviation hub. However, the implementation mechanism is still being worked out.
Early last year, India started weighing the potential of creating global aviation hubs, and is planning a pilot in Delhi, India’s largest and busiest airport.
Last month, Mint that the civil aviation ministry is working on a national aviation hub policy to encourage Indian airlines in international expansion. The policy may also introduce differential charges for Indian and foreign airlines at airports in the country.
“I think it is time with around 15.5 crore domestic and 6 crore international passengers that we look at creating a hub in India; earlier, we didn’t have the numbers. Therefore, we have taken up Delhi as a pilot to create that hub where we are working with Delhi airport, Air India as well as IndiGo to do an international-domestic, domestic-international and even an international-international connection,” Scindia said.
As the concept of a hub is to ensure immediate connectivity between a domestic and an international flight with minimum travel time, the civil aviation ministry will engage the ministries of finance, tourism, external affairs and home so that a viable plan can be put in place with allocation of responsibilities, he added.
Foreign airlines, however, feel India is a large enough country and both Indian and foreign carriers can grow.
“We have always maintained that any increase in flights helps consumers as it means lower fares and increased connectivity at the same time. Also, foreign and Indian airlines can work together to make India an aviation hub,” said an Indian executive of a large foreign airline.
The lure of India’s aviation market has increased after the covid pandemic, with global industry estimates suggesting the recovery of the domestic aviation ecosystem has been the fastest in the world. Air traffic in December crossed pre-covid levels to touch a record 13.8 million passengers.
The government, however, is also aware of the constraints in foreign flying rights for some regions such as Dubai, where the existing seat allocation is fully exhausted by carriers from both sides.
This is a concern for emerging airlines such as Akasa, which is set to launch international flights before the middle of this year.
“…In some cases, it has become tight; so, where there are some cases where it has become tight, we will talk if our carriers want to increase,” Scindia said.
The government’s focus, meanwhile, is to restrict any increase in foreign flying to carry only point-to-point traffic.