Interline with Air India and Vistara but codeshare with IndiGo: Understanding Virgin's India plan

Representative image

It’s Tuesday, September 27, and Virgin Atlantic’s codeshare deal with IndiGo, the country’s largest carrier by fleet and domestic market share, is live. Entering into codeshare arrangements—an arrangement between airlines that allows passengers to seamlessly transfer from one operator’s flight to that of another by using the same flight number—has become a regular event for IndiGo, starting with Turkish Airlines and then adding Qatar Airways, American Airlines, Qantas and Air France-KLM this year. Ideally, it wouldn’t raise many eyebrows when a new codeshare agreement is signed but in the case of Virgin Atlantic, it did.

The reason? Apart from Virgin Atlantic’s premium positioning, the airline has a longstanding interline agreement—where passengers have multiple flights or legs and where different airlines accommodate them in their primary area of operation—in place with both Air India and Vistara, but has chosen IndiGo for the codeshare. The codeshare allows Virgin Atlantic customers to connect to and from seven additional cities in India, which will expand to cover a total of 16 destinations later.

What happens to the interline agreement with Air India and Vistara?

As of now the interline agreement continues. A glance at booking engines shows that Virgin Atlantic is offering flights with options of all three carriers. While the IndiGo flights have a codeshare and a Virgin Atlantic code is placed on it, that is not the case with Vistara and Air India.

This means that Virgin Atlantic customers can book a flight with Vistara or Air India and fly the Indian legs with either but not get any loyalty points, or book with IndiGo as the option and earn loyalty points!

IndiGo the preferred choice?

Virgin Atlantic operates to Delhi and Mumbai from London’s Heathrow airport. Vistara operates to London from Delhi, while Air India operates from both Delhi and Mumbai. But such codeshares are not uncommon. Why did Virgin Atlantic then gravitate towards IndiGo?

IndiGo might have ambitions to fly to London, but it has time and again said that it does not intend to fly wide-body aircraft just yet. For their part, Vistara and Air India would be keen to have passengers fly onwards to London on their own flights rather than transfer passengers to Virgin Atlantic. IndiGo also has multiple flights a day along with red-eye flights, which helps shorten connecting times.

This, though, comes with its own challenges. IndiGo operates split operations at Mumbai and Delhi, with flights across two terminals. There could be instances of having to catch the next flight at another terminal, necessitating longer transit times and inconvenience.

What should the passengers do?

Over the years, low-cost carriers or LCCs globally have been carving out market share at the cost of full-service carriers. From being point-to-point carriers, the LCCs have progressed to becoming network carriers and investing in systems allowing codeshares and interline agreements. In cases where under codeshare or interline deals passengers transfer from a full-service carrier to an LCC, where buy on board is the norm, it is now standard practice to serve complementary meals, a norm followed by IndiGo as well, as an added convenience.

Secondly, Indian rules warrant arriving passengers to complete immigration and customs at the point of entry. This means passengers having arrived in Delhi or Mumbai and flying onwards with IndiGo’s codeshared flights will have to collect their bags and redeposit them. In that case, one might even look for other, cheaper options. Except that those are not subject to compensation or re-accommodation in case of delays on the inbound flight.

Lastly, as the interline with Vistara and Air India continues, passengers, especially from the premium cabins, could also look at choosing those offerings clubbing Air India or Vistara flights to ensure a similar cabin experience.

In any case, passengers should warm up to the possibility of one leg being on LCCs in future in case of a codeshare or interline flight. These are early days yet and social media already sees occasional complaints from passengers about the difference in service and seating. It could only increase from here on as more and more codeshares get activated. With most domestic flights in India being under three hours and the average time being a little below two hours, the cost of convenience far outweighs the change in service levels!