With one stop to Europe from Amritsar, SpiceJet upstages rivals

Low-cost carrier SpiceJet has started operating to two points in Italy from Amritsar (Representative Image)

Amritsar airport is a bit of a mystery for those who track airline networks. Domestic passengers have been surprised in the past to see Uzbekistan Airways or Turkmenistan Airlines aircraft on the Amritsar tarmac. The Central Asian carriers added Amritsar as well as Delhi to their network to help feed flights to former Soviet Republics and parts of Europe.

But there’s more. Next time you’re in Amritsar, don’t be surprised to see Milan Bergamo airport on the Departures list. Low-cost carrier SpiceJet has started operating to two points in Italy from Amritsar, which currently offers the only direct connection between India and the southern European country.

While time will tell if this is a match made in heaven, it definitely looks a good match for both the airport, which has been struggling to get international connectivity, and for the airline, which often runs into cash-rich IndiGo pressuring it with lower fares.

SpiceJet, with this addition, goes back to a Blue Ocean strategy first crafted by its former CEO Neil Mills a decade ago. That strategy saw the airline look for innovative routes without direct competition, which could push up yields. The launch of flights to Kabul was one such example. SpiceJet was the only private carrier that flew to the Afghan capital all along.

The airline has now expanded to Rome and Milan from Amritsar, starting early November, via a stop at Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. This comes after testing the waters during the pandemic with a multitude of aircraft, including a wet-leased Airbus that the airline used to connect Amritsar with Italy.

Stealing a march over IndiGo

It was in 2018 that IndiGo had filed for one-stop flights to London from Delhi and Bengaluru. IndiGo’s ambitions for Europe in general and London in particular have been well talked about. As early as 2018, the airline wanted to enter Eastern Europe via Tbilisi or Baku. While the flights currently selling are just once-a-week affairs to both destinations, they could pave the way for future operations at Tbilisi for SpiceJet.

Interestingly, both Tbilisi and Baku are relatively congestion free. There is no issue with bilateral rights at either location since the stop is just technical in nature and SpiceJet is not selling tickets to Tbilisi from either India or Italy.

SpiceJet’s flights to Milan operate to Bergamo airport, a secondary airport in Milan. The city’s major operations are out of Malpensa airport and Linate airport. SpiceJet and its passengers will also get a first hand taste of the European concept of operating to secondary airports as an LCC. Milan Bergamo is a hub for Ryanair.

But why this route?

Over the years, Indians have migrated to Italy in large numbers and a majority of these migrants are from Punjab. From agriculture to cheese making and restaurants to trade, the diaspora has been involved in multiple professions.

SpiceJet is banking on the frequent traffic, especially VFR (Visiting Friends and Relatives) to drive passenger numbers. The traffic largely moves to Punjab during the winters to avoid the relatively harsh winters in Europe or North America and returns to avoid the harsh summer in India.

Italy is coming up as the second largest base of NRIs from Punjab after the UK.

Tail Note
For the record, Amritsar is now the only city to be connected to Italy, until ITA starts flights to Delhi next month. Additionally, Amritsar is also connected to London and Birmingham in the UK this season.

But the city has a record of losing flights. Be it Air India or Jet Airways, a mix of internal policies and external factors have always seen flights being pulled out. There are airlines that have prepared business plans purely on the basis of connecting Amritsar to the UK but those plans fizzled out, with some collapsing even before the first flight.

The story is the same for SpiceJet. It has tried, succeeded and then left the market when it came under pressure from competition and could not sustain the initial momentum. Longer flights tend to lose a lot of money for an airline like SpiceJet, which is far from cash rich. Sustaining route-level losses for long is not an option for the airline.

If the Italy experiment works, will it pave the way for more such city pairs for SpiceJet, wherein it can tap NRIs? A lot would depend on how effectively it is able to handle its fleet renewal, among other things. Passengers have preferred nonstop or direct flights post-Covid, and are not keen on multi-stop flights, so the once a week operation may not be suited for all. Additionally, there remains a permanent risk of competition entering with multi-frequency and cheaper options, snatching the traffic SpiceJet would have meticulously built over time.