Jet Airways is downsizing domestic operations

Jet Airways is constantly updating their network schedule during this winter schedule, given their situation. They are trying to work out what is best for them. Usually one of the first steps of a turnaround plan is to downsize the operations. We already covered how Jet Airways is consolidating their international network.

Here we will cover Jet Airways domestic route changes. As of now, I could find the following changes in effect from December 5, 2018. There are tonnes of routes which are seeing a frequency reduction.

  • New Delhi to Dehradun becomes 2x daily except for Sunday and 3x daily on Sundays in December and January. Back to 3x daily except for Sunday and 4x daily on Sundays from February 2018.
  • Mumbai to Kolkata is reducing to 7x daily from 8x daily
  • New Delhi to Mumbai is reducing from 17x daily to 16x daily
  • Mumbai to Thiruvananthapuram is reducing from 2x daily to 1x daily
  • New Delhi to Indore is reducing from 3x daily to 2x daily
  • New Delhi to Bagdogra is reducing from 2x daily to daily
  • Kolkata to Guwahati is reducing from 2x daily to daily
  • Kolkata to New Delhi is reducing from 4x daily to 2x daily
  • New Delhi to Chandigarh is reducing from 4x daily to 3x daily
  • Mumbai to Dehradun is reducing from 2x daily to daily
  • New Delhi to Udaipur is reducing from 3x daily to 2x daily from December 4, 2018. Further reducing to Daily from December 7, 2018. Increasing to 2x Daily from February 10, 2019
  • Mumbai to Coimbatore is reducing from 3x Daily to 2x Daily
Mumbai to Thiruvananthapuram Jet Airways

2x Daily Mumbai to Thiruvananthapuram on December 4, 2018

Mumbai to Thiruvananthapuram Jet Airways

Reducing to Daily on Mumbai to Thiruvananthapuram from December 5, 2018

Other routes?

Routes in the DGCA schedule filed by Jet Airways which haven’t materialised yet or are shut down or shutting down include the following:

  • Chennai to Madurai
  • Bengaluru to Thiruvananthapuram
  • Patna to Bengaluru
  • Bengaluru to Lucknow
  • New Delhi to Vishakhapatnam
  • Ahmedabad to Guwahati
  • Guwahati to Pune
  • Rajkot to Indore
  • Rajkot to Udaipur
  • Udaipur to Indore
  • Hyderabad to New Delhi
  • Pune to Hyderabad
  • Hyderabad to Shirdi
  • Chennai to Indore
  • Pune to Raipur
  • Kolkata to Pune
  • Chandigarh to Kolkata
  • Kolkata to Indore

In case of Bengaluru to Patna, Jet Airways operated 4 flights in September, 6 in October and 7 in November before shutting it down.

Routes which are seeing a frequency addition,

  • New Delhi to Patna is increasing from 2x daily to 3x daily
  • New Delhi to Raipur is increasing from daily to 2x daily

In the new summer schedule which is going to be operational from March 28, 2019, Jet Airways will be closing Khajuraho operations. Khajuraho is currently served by a daily Boeing 737 flight from New Delhi via Varanasi.

Jet Airways over the years have opted out of quite a few stations like Tiruchirappalli, Jammu, Port Blair, Ranchi and Bhubaneshwar with Tiruchirappalli being the most recent one. No doubt there are many more. In this new schedule, they have drastically reduced their presence in Kerala. Jet Airways currently operates,

  • Kochi: 3x Daily flights from Mumbai, 1x Daily flight from New Delhi and 1x Daily flight to Sharjah (which will be shutting down)
  • Kozhikode: 1x Daily flight from Mumbai
  • Thiruvananthapuram: 1x Daily flight from Mumbai and 1x Daily flight to Dammam

There are also numerous domestic stations where Jet Airways now operates a single daily flight (in some cases not even daily) such as:

  • Madurai
  • Vishakhapatnam
  • Kozhikode
  • Leh
  • Srinagar
  • Khajuraho
  • Nashik

Jet Airways is indeed facing stiff competition from no-frills carriers. IndiGo added 13 new domestic flights and 3 International flights out of Kochi this year. SpiceJet is also expanding massively in Rajasthan in the recent years, which was a stronghold of Jet Airways. Of the top of my head, Jet Airways operates Ahmedabad to Jodhpur with an ATR 72-500 for quite some time now. In the recent schedule, SpiceJet launched a flight on the same route with a Q400 Dash8. No doubt demand is there, but is it enough for 2 daily flights to sustain?

The table will give you a comparison of how Jet Airways domestic metro network fares in terms of frequencies, in comparison to their FSC peers.

a table with numbers and symbols

Bottomline

It seems there is a tonne of changes coming to the 9W network. Some of these may be just unprofitable operations, some others may be pulled out due to aeroplane requirements at other places. But Jet Airways definitely seems to be operating a lower number of flights than published in DGCA schedule.

What are your thoughts on Jet Airways overall network changes? 

Comments

  1. The direct flight to Aizawl, Mizoram has been stopped by Jet Airways! Such a shame because now no-one will take a 12-15 hour drive one way to this small state. Tourism will be effected badly.

    Air India flies via Kolkata to Aizawl with a 17 hour minimum stop over which means hotel stay making the whole trip very expensive.

    Hope another domestic airlines will operate to Aizawl directly.

  2. Hi.
    I need some help.
    I’ve booked on a Jet airways flight for September 21 2019 and have a confirmed reservation for this flight. I’m trying to book my friend with me on the same flight but as far as I can see I can only book until 27 August 2019.
    Ive heard that jetairways are downsizing operations in India but I have no means of finding out what’s happening with my flight. I’ve tried several emails, still no reply. I live in Europe so calling India is expensive and the European offices have no idea of what’s going on.
    Can somebody tell me what is happening or would it be better to book another ticket with someone else
    Thanks very much
    Mick

  3. Its high time to think about starting operations from Vijayawada ( fastest growing passenger travelling ). They also can plan to start one service to Dubai as they are shutting the middle east operations. This entry will be a show stopper for vijayawada travelers and from Dubai they can be connected to USA or UK. Promise, Vijayawada will never disappoint you.

  4. Looks like they are going to withdraw BLR-IXE (atr) route from Feb 10 onwards.
    From 6 daily to 3 daily and now closing operations!

  5. I think they should have kept BLR PAT service as BLR PAT DEL. I don’t think 9W will do any better in PPS service. If they want to recover costs in B town routes then stop over or other side A town connectivity should be the way forward.

  6. I feel one of the under utilised market for Jet is Ahmedabad.
    Not sure about time slots but except Mumbai and Delhi, they don’t have direct flights to other major cities. And I feel can be a decent revenue stream for them compared to other routes.

    • 9W missed the bus a long time ago. They do have flights to Indore and Jodhpur from Ahmedabad also. The thing is Ahmedabad is a huge LCC base. Earlier IndiGo was a clear leader but SpiceJet since this year has been giving IndiGo a tough fight. They are concentrating on the number of destinations instead of frequency.
      I will give you an example, Ahmedabad-Bengaluru. IndiGo was the market leader with 5 daily flights. Now this year, all major carriers (6E, SG, G8, AI and UK) except Jet Airways have at least a daily flight on this route.
      Frankly, in this situation, I personally feel, Jet Airways won’t be able to compete out of Ahmedabad. The reason is plain and simple, other carriers won’t allow (refer to SpiceJet example I gave in the article).
      They haven’t been doing well on Ahmedabad-Delhi also after Vistara came in. There was a time 9W had more than 5 daily flights (if I remember correctly they had 6-7 at some point of time) but they are down to 3 daily flights (no morning departure from Delhi and no night departure from Ahmedabad).

  7. TRV is one of the oldest of the lot and consistent pax loads. They are been thrown out by Indigo from TRV at least , 4X to BLR, 2X into BOM by Indigo . Jet been pushed out from Kerala . Really bad news

  8. Couple of things here:
    9W operates 3X DEL PAT almost 10 months every year (and curtails it due to fog at Patna in Dec/Jan). Hence, its not an addition. They’re just reinstating the frequency.

    Also, 9W 141/142 was operated 3x weekly till mid Nov at least. Though all my future bookings now have been converted to one stop flights.

  9. What 9W is failing to realize is that a lot of these routes feed into their profitable international routes and other domestic sectors. By cutting frequencies or by shutting some stations they will see a fall in loads across rest of their route!

    My home base is IXC – every year take about 10-12 flights to BLR, SIN, MAA and HYD. 9W doesn’t have direct flights between a lot of these cities so I normally would have a short 2-2.5 hr stopover at DEL. I did it for 2 reasons – JP Tier points and lounges 🙂 With just 3x daily DEL-IXC and 1X daily BOM-IXC I don’t see how I can continue to patronize 9W. With the shoddy interior of their a/c and new lows they are making every day I would prefer taking 6E. Most of my bookings are corporate and although I would miss the thrill of earning miles and retaining my tier I think I am done with 9W.

    I personally am indifferent to the changes 9W is making now.

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