IndiGo Increases Connectivity From Kolkata

India’s largest airline has increased its presence in the eastern city of Kolkata. Also known as the City of Joy, Kolkata is one of four major metropolitan cities in India. IndiGo has added a bunch of new routes and announced the bolstering of capacity on some existing ones.

The new services include both, international and domestic destinations, while the additional frequencies are aimed at strengthening the domestic network. Let us take a detailed look at the new flights and schedules.

New domestic and international routes

IndiGo has announced three new routes from Kolkata’s Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport (CCU). The carrier will fly to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport (BKK) twice a week on Tuesdays and Saturdays, to Surat International Airport (STV) on a daily frequency, and daily to Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (HYD) in Hyderabad.

The service to Bangkok will begin on June 3, 2023, while the other two domestic services will begin a month later on July 3, 2023.

In addition, the carrier has also added new daily flights to its existing Bengaluru (BLR) and Goa (GOI) sectors. The CCU-BLR sector already has several daily nonstop flights while the service to GOI currently only has one nonstop daily flight from the low-cost carrier. Both new frequencies are expected to begin on June 26, 2023.

Specific details like flight numbers and timings can be found in the below table.

Is the Akasa threat real?

As Simple Flying reported last week, Akasa Air reached a major milestone by commencing flights to Kolkata (CCU), thereby covering all major Indian metropolitan cities. India’s newest airline has only just begun operating daily flights on the CCU-BLR sector, which makes us wonder if IndiGo’s decision of adding another frequency is a message to young Akasa.

While there is no concrete evidence to prove the theory, it does make sense when looking at the finer details. Akasa’s flight leaves CCU at 2150 hours and lands in BLR at 0025 the next day. Meanwhile, IndiGo’s new flight (6E 226) takes off 40 minutes later. It is worth noting that IndiGo also has another daily flight leaving CCU 35 minutes prior to the Akasa flight.

IndiGo has been following this approach with Akasa’s flights for quite a while now. The idea is for a big carrier to schedule flights just before and after that of a smaller carrier in an attempt to capture demand and kill the competition.