IndiGo

Singapore Airlines Group and Changi Airport to benefit as India-Singapore market opens up further

The Singapore-India market is poised for a modest increase in capacity, driven by further expansion from the Singapore Airlines (SIA) Group made possible by the recent signing of an expanded bilateral between the two countries.

The updated air services agreement only increases the previous capacity allotment for Singapore-based carriers by 10%. But SIA will take whatever it can get as Singapore-India is an important and generally under-served market. Incremental increases are typical with the India-Singapore bilateral, which has been updated several times in recent years, although Singapore would prefer a much bigger and broader agreement.

SIA along with full-service subsidiary SilkAir and low-cost carrier affiliate Tiger Airways already account for over 70% of capacity between India and Singapore. Indian carriers do not require a revised bilateral as they were using less than 40% of the prior allotment. Indian carriers over the last year have seen their share of the market decrease and may see their share drop further by the end of 2013 as the SIA Group again boosts capacity to India.

United ends 2012 as world's biggest airline, Emirates third. Turkish and Lion Air the biggest movers

United Airlines, following its merger with Continental, has ended 2012 as the world's biggest airline measured by available seat kilometres for the current week, ahead of second placed Delta, whose capacity fell 0.3% year on year, according to Innovata. Fast growing Dubai-based carrier Emirates is the world's third biggest airline by this measure, and could be in second place by the end of 2013 if the past year's growth rates are maintained.

Southwest Airlines remains easily the largest LCC, while Lion Air and Jetstar have each climbed the LCC top 10, to sixth and seventh places respectively, overtaking Westjet. Atlanta Airport (just) remains the world's largest, ahead of Beijing Capital Airport, in terms of seat throughput for the week, but this ranking seems certain to reverse in 2013.

The biggest movers in the overall World Top 50 list include Turkish Airlines, which jumped seven places to rank 15th globally, while Indonesian carrier Lion Air vaulted eight places to enter the global Top 40 for the first time. Iberia and India's Jet Airways fell four and seven places in the 2012 rankings, respectively.

Global Airline Alliances collectively grew capacity at higher than the world rate, with SkyTeam expanding fastest of the three majors, although Star Alliance remains easily the largest.

SkyTeam plans new partnership platform to attract hybrids and LCCs, especially in Brazil and India

In the past year, the global marketing alliances – oneworld, SkyTeam and Star – have found themselves facing two large dilemmas. First, almost all of the world's major airlines have become aligned to a global alliance, making it difficult to increase value. The standouts are largely low-cost carriers and Middle East network carriers. Second, internal segmentation has occurred as member carriers, under pressure to be smarter and more strategic, form tight relationships outside of alliance lines. That inverts the loyalty proposition: where carriers once associated themselves with a marketing alliance, now the primary association is often to key members, with the alliance alignment secondary.

SkyTeam's solution is consideration of a hybrid partnership platform. Details are being worked through but the framework would target the low-cost and hybrid carriers that largely comprise the unaligned standout carriers.

World's largest airlines cautious with capacity. Some big moves in global airline rankings

Emirates is close to overtaking American Airlines and becoming the third largest airline by available seat kilometres (ASKs) after the Dubai-based carrier's massive 19% increase in capacity over the last year. Emirates' current capacity is close to 30% above levels of just two years ago, according to Innovata. Over the same period, American has cut capacity by about 8% while larger rivals United Airlines and Delta Air Lines have slashed ASKs by over 16%, according to Innovata. Interestingly, were American Airlines to combine with US Airways it would become the world's biggest airline - some 4% larger than Delta by ASKs based on Innovata capacity figures for Aug-2012.

The other big movers over the past two years include Ryanair, which has leapfrogged China Southern and US Airways into the Top 10, and Turkish Airlines, which has soared into 17th position (from 27th two summers ago) thanks to an astonishing 52% increase in ASKs. easyJet has also moved up several places to be just outside the Top 20, while Japan's ANA and JAL have fallen outside the top 20 grouping.

IndiGo stands out as the only profitable carrier in India

IndiGo is an anomaly in the Indian market – it is the only profitable domestic airline this financial year (ending 31-Mar-2012). The carrier is however, like its peers, feeling the pressure in a tough operating environment. President Aditya Ghosh this month noted the carrier would see a decline in FY2012 profits, with the results substantially impacted by high fuel costs.

"Margins were under huge pressure because average price of fuel is now higher than what it was in 2009. There has been a growth in revenue and we will turn out to be profitable at end of the year. It will be much smaller profit than we have done in the previous year,'' he said in an interview with Business Standard. The carrier reported an 18% increase in profit to INR6.5 billion (USD130 million) in FY2011 but expects the FY2012 result to be a "fraction" of this figure. "For us profitability means that we are able to get spare parts on time, pay salaries on time, maintain integrity of schedules and plan for growth," he stated.

The world's biggest airlines cautious with capacity growth in March

The world's airlines are being cautious with their capacity deployment in 2012, the latest figures from Innovata show. Carriers increased their capacity by 3.6% during in March, which is slightly above IATA's latest forecast for full-year capacity growth.