With its extended range and unbeatable economics, The A321XLR could be a game-changer for Indian aviation. In Part-1, I look at a potential scenario to connect Europe with Tier-II Indian cities using a Scissor-Hub operation in Istanbul SAW airport.
The A321XLR is the latest variant of the proven A320 platform. It has the same fuselage and engine options of the A321neo but with increased MTOW and integrated fuel tanks for more range. Its impressive range of 4700nm and unbeatable narrow-body economics means it offers airlines the unique opportunity of launching new routes directly connecting Tier-II cities with select international destinations.
Indigo has 50 XLRs in its order of 400+ A320 family aircraft. Air India has also mentioned changing some of its order of 180+ A321neos to the XLR variant. In Part 1 of this series, I look at the idea of connecting Tier-II cities in India to European cities via a "Scissor Hub" bypassing the traditional pain point of having to connect at DEL or BOM.
A scissor-hub operation involves aircraft flying in from a number of Indian cities like Pune, Mangalore, Ahmedabad etc and flying onwards to various cities in Europe allowing passengers to transfer seamlessly between the aircraft at the Hub without having to recheck bags, go through security etc. In this case, I have used Sabiha Gökçen International Airport (IATA: SAW, ICAO: LTFJ) serving Istanbul (Turkey) as the scissor hub but it can also work with OTP or other airports in Eastern Europe.
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| SAW Scissor Hub |
The First "Bank" would involve 9 A321XLR aircraft operating the following routes shown in the table below. Aircraft 1 would operate flight #3001 MAA-SAW-MAN and return, Aircraft 2 would operate Flight #3003 BLR-SAW-EDI and return and so on. All 9 aircraft would land at SAW within the same 1 hour window and leave with a 1 hour halt both ways allowing passengers to interchange at SAW. Passengers boarding Flight #3009 at Kochi (COK) for Birmingham would disembark at SAW and board Flight #3003 for Birmingham (BHX). Their luggage would be checked through to their final destination and "transfer" would only involve switching gates at the hub without going through security all over again. COK passgengers bound for CDG could remain on board the aircraft during the hour long halt.
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| Aircraft Deployment |
The timing of the arrival and departure "Bank" at the Hub airport is critical since we want passengers to be able to board flights from their source and arrive at their final destination at a decent hour. After playing around on Excel a little bit, I have found a 3pm Bank for West-bound and a 3am bank for East-bound to be most workable from SAW airport.
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| West-bound Bank Arrival ~13:00, Departure 15:00 @SAW |
The East-Bound schedule might look something like this!
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| East-bound Bank Arrival ~01:30, Departure 03:00 @SAW |
There are several advantages to this sort of X-Hub deployment. It allows the airline to serve a number of destinations that individually may not make sense, but collectively they can certainly help fill the aircraft profitably.
Passengers connecting through SAW will check in their bags once and collect it directly at the Destination before Customs. This is a major pain point of Connecting via DEL. Passengers heading to ATQ, PNQ, COK, BLR etc have to collect their bags, do customs and immigration at DEL and check in again atleast when coming back to India! This problem goes away with the SAW X-Hub. Arrival and Departure times at the Indian station and Final destination are at decent hours.
X-hub deployment will also lead to more efficient Utilization of Fleet. Aircraft returning from Europe between 10am and 12 am will go on
to operate to the Africa X-hub that I will be covering in part 2 with a
4 hour gap for line maintenance, followed finally by the East Asian hub that I will cover in Part 3. This will in turn be followed by scheduled downtime of 12 hours for more thorough Weekly maintenance at a Indian city of Choice. I find Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMI) to be very strategically located for this purpose.
Collectively, the airline can link 9 stations each in Europe, East Asia and Africa to 9 cities in India with daily flights with a fleet of 30 aircraft, assuming 3 aircraft kept as maintenance reserve. Many of the routes mentioned don't require the XLR's 4700nm range. Howoever the increased MTOW will mean the airline wont have to leave bags behind to operate a flight like Indigo has had to do at IST many times!
Air India apologists will jump in saying there is "no traffic" to these smaller stations. I respectfully disagree. Air India said the same thing about flights linking Pune (PNQ) to Frankfurt & Munich - until Lufthansa proved the business case! Air India strategy has been to build their DEL hub and consolidate all operations there. They have artificially constricted growth at other stations by insisting on diverting traffic from other smaller stations via DEL hub.
Air India apologists are missing out on one key point. This is not the 70s or 80s anymore where all international traffic could be routed via BOM or DEL! Traffic from smaller cities has grown immeasurably since then! We have to look at the 9 smaller Tier-II stations I have identified above as "Catchment areas". eg. Amritsar (ATQ) serves as the catchment airport for the entire Majha region plus Western Malwa of Punjab while Chandigarh (IXC) serves that role for Eastern Malwa region as well as Western Haryana. COK airport serves Central Kerala, TRV serves southern Kerala while CNN & CCJ serve North Kerala.
Will this affect traffic flows at Air India's prized DEL hub? Oh Most certainly! But this will lead to lower fares and more connectivity options for the passengers.
There will be sufficient traffic from India to feed the European bank. But yields can be improved even further if Indigo can tie up with a local LCC carrier which has an extensive European network out of SAW - Like Pegasus Airlines - to offer even more connectivity and feed.
Key challenges.
Running a Scissor Hub requires a level of operational excellence which Desi carriers might struggle to meet. On Time performance and seamless transfers are key to making this work, Which is why I think that relatively more efficient Indigo has the best chance to pull something of this scale off! Air India always protective about its BOM/DEL hub will no doubt throw a hissy-fit! The Govt of India which has always been DEL-centric is likely to throw a spanner in the works!
A European Airline based at SAW like Pegasus or Wizz Air could certainly do this too! Both have substantial numbers of the A321 on order.
What do you think of this idea of a Scissor-Hub at SAW airport? Let me know in the comments!
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