The longest and shortest routes in Indian skies this winter

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The Northern winter 2022 schedule came into effect on October 30. The regulator has approved 21,941 weekly flights. This translates to 3,134 daily flights across airlines. Incidentally, this was the same number of approved flights in Winter 2019, the last full schedule before the pandemic.

The first day of the schedule saw airlines operate 2,687 flights. While it was expected that 3,134 departures won’t take effect on the very first day, the reduced approved flights mean that utilisation was at 85.74 percent of the approved scheduled, which is nearly 10 percent more than the approved versus operated schedule for Summer 2022.

Every schedule throws up some interesting route combinations in India. Alliance Air, the only government-led airline in the country, operates the shortest route in the country ― at 58 kilometres (km), between Guwahati and Silchar. The airline operates this flight thrice a week. As for the longest, the record is with Air India, which operates a non-stop flight between Delhi and Port Blair, a distance of 2,482 km.

Shortest routes in the country

Market leader IndiGo’s shortest ATR route is between Silchar and Shillong, which it operates thrice a week. The distance of 134 km is covered in 40 minutes. FlyBig, the all-ATR operator, operates its shortest route between Guwahati and Rupsi, which is a distance of 167 km. For SpiceJet, the only operator of Q400 in India, the shortest route on the turboprop is between Delhi and Jaipur at 230 km. The airline’s Boeing fleet, in fact, operates a shorter flight between Jammu and Srinagar at 143 km!

The all Airbus operators, AirAsia India and Go FIRST, have Delhi-Jaipur-Delhi and Jammu-Srinagar-Jammu as their shortest routes, respectively. The Tata group airline, Vistara, also operates Jammu-Srinagar-Jammu as its shortest route. Air India’s flight between Kannur and Calicut is the shortest flight for the airline at 95 km. It is also the shortest narrow-body flight in the country.

Newcomer Akasa Air’s Guwahati-Agartala route is the shortest for the airline at 248 km, while regional operator Star Air, which is set to induct E175s in its fleet, has Bengaluru-Hubballi as its shortest route.

The longest routes

While Air India operates the longest route in the country to Port Blair from Delhi, IndiGo’s longest route also touches Port Blair, but from Mumbai. The 2,279 km of distance is covered in three hours and 25 minutes. For the ATR fleet of IndiGo, the longest distance it traverses is to Kolhapur from Ahmedabad, covering 732 km in two hours and 10 minutes. FlyBig’s flight to Patna from Guwahati at 652 km is the longest for the airline.

The two-hours-and-10-minute flight to Lilabari from Kolkata is the longest for Alliance Air, covering a distance of 766 km. But the 1,456-km long Bengaluru-Gwalior sector, operated by the Q400 for SpiceJet, beats everyone as the longest turboprop flight in the country. The Q400 has a longer range and higher speed than the ATR allowing it to cover longer distances.

The all Airbus operators, AirAsia India and Go FIRST, have Delhi-Kochi-Delhi and Delhi-Bengaluru-Delhi as their longest routes respectively. Vistara, another Tata group airline, operates the Delhi-Trivandrum-Delhi sector, which is its longest at 2,232 km.

Akasa Air, which is rapidly expanding, has its route between Bengaluru and Guwahati as the longest. Star Air operates the Bengaluru-Jamnagar route as its longest on the E145s.

Airlines and their presence

Data shared by OAG Aviation, exclusively for this article, shows that Delhi has the maximum weekly departures at 3,214, followed by Mumbai at 2,126. Bengaluru comes in third at 1,876, while Hyderabad is fourth at 1,194. Chennai is the only other airport to have more than 1,000 domestic departures per week at 1,003.

Bengaluru has pipped Hyderabad as the airport with the maximum number of airlines operating domestic flights. The airport sees 10 carriers operate. The only carrier which does not operate to Bengaluru is FlyBig.

While both the A320neo and the B737 ― the mainstay of airlines in the narrow body segment ― have a range of nearly 6,000 km, no two points in the country are that long. One wonders if there is a market for smaller jets that can open up more such long, thin routes.

As the season progresses, new airports are likely to be added. These include Rourkela, MOPA, and Hollangi, among others. For now, it's a perfect 100 airports operational this week! From an airline perspective, market leader IndiGo operates to 74, while Alliance Air operates to 50, Air India operates to 49, SpiceJet to 46, Vistara to 31, Go FIRST to 25, AirAsia India to 18, Star Air to 15, and Akasa Air and FlyBig to eight each.