IndiGo welcomes Akasa Air, launches seventh Bengaluru-Kochi flight hours after new airline announces routes

He added that before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2018 and 2019, IndiGo has often used its fleet size and market share to squeeze out the competition in the Indian skies.

Back in 2018, former Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb had written to the aviation ministry, urging it to intervene in what he characterized as an airline exploiting a monopolistic situation on the Agartala-Kolkata route after a rival was forced to stop flights.

Kumar had in his letter said that airfares on the Agartala-Kolkata route had risen 150 percent after IndiGo had used its fleet size and financial might to squeeze everyone else out of the market.

IndiGo operates on nearly 550 routes in India, more than double the routes offered by any other airline in the country, according to data from Ameya Joshi from aviation analysis website Network Thoughts. Air India and SpiceJet both operate on around 270 routes in the country.

Furthermore, on 194 of the 531 routes that IndiGo operates, the airline had an absolute monopoly or has a capacity share of 75 percent. It also has 50 percent or more capacity share on 470 routes.

SpiceJet had monopoly operations on 26.7 percent of its routes while Air India had monopoly operations on only 21 percent of its routes.

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed Akasa Air on July 22 opened bookings for flights between Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Kochi.

The country's newest airline plans to start operations of its flights from August 7 and in the inaugural phase of its network development, it will launch its operations by offering 28 weekly flights between Mumbai and Ahmedabad.