Analysis Reports

Indian LCC IndiGo is facing intense oversight and investigations in the wake of its early Dec-2025 network meltdown, with new questions likely to be raised about its rapid growth rate and dominant market share.

IndiGo and its leaders must answer to regulators, politicians and the public over the cascading cancellations over several days that stranded thousands of passengers at Indian airports.

The airline and regulators have said that the major problem was adjusting to new pilot duty time rules that stretched its workforce. Computer system glitches and adverse weather exacerbated the issue.

The crisis represents one of the few major stumbles for IndiGo in its 20-year growth story.

IndiGo has now had to pull back its growth plans, partly of its own volition and partly due to regulatory directives.

The fall-out from the network disruption is likely to result in financial penalties, and some executives may still lose their jobs.

One of the main focuses of the investigations will be whether its workforce and processes are adequate for its expansion, and what must be done to ensure that they are more suitable in the future.

Because of this, the airline's next growth projections will probably be more cautious, and will be subjected to increased scrutiny.

This presents an opportunity for IndiGo's rivals to step in, although they have already made their plans for the winter season and will be wary of stretching their capabilities too far themselves.

The US president Donald Trump likes good news (especially if it involves him).

And there's nothing more likely to win him kudos on the streets of Washington D.C., where he isn't particularly popular with the local residents, than fixing the US capital's main international airport, Dulles, which has numerous problems that need attention.

The president has ordered the Department of Transportation to submit an RFI for proposals and public-private partnership (P3) plans from developers, architects and engineers to construct new terminals and concourses at Washington Dulles International Airport.A

He, and it, specifically seek private sector co-operation on these matters through P3s, as they have been the most effective method of building new airport infrastructure in recent years. Airport privatisation by lease has gone off the boil, perhaps never to rekindle. (During the president's first term he set out to privatise the two Washington airports - but that fell flat).

The question is, to what extent will the private sector come on board; and if so, who exactly?

Although there are highly capable US companies in this field, the greatest experience of providing privatised infrastructure in this sector is to be found elsewhere, and there are almost certain to be foreign companies that were queuing up for the St Louis Lambert Airport lease in 2018 that will see another opportunity begging.

This report considers the current status of Dulles, its future traffic forecasts, its charging regime, the quality of existing infrastructure, and which organisations might be tempted to come on board.

Volotea was recently named by World Travel Awards as Europe's leading low-cost airline for 2025 - this is the fourth time in five years that it has received this accolade.

Volotea styles itself as "the airline connecting small and mid-sized European cities", and occupies a market niche between Europe's leading low-cost airlines and regional airlines.

Historically a consistently double digit growth airline, it expects growth to slow to 1% in 2025, when it anticipates carrying 11.5 million passengers.

However, it plans a return to double digit growth in 2026, when it targets seat growth of 10%.

Volotea anticipates a more than doubling of its EBIT margin in 2025 to between 8.5% and 9% - its highest ever since its 2011 launch.

This report considers Volotea's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

A snapshot of the South Korean market shows that international traffic is still gaining steadily, thanks in part to Chinese travellers, even though the growth rate is settling back into a more stable single digit range.

Overseas visitor numbers have been increasing more strongly than overall international traffic, indicating that tourism is robust.

The mainland China market is once again South Korea's leading source of visitors, after a few years where it slipped down the rankings.

However, this traffic flow is still not back to 2019 levels.

Increased tension between China and Japan may boost South Korean international traffic, as South Korea could be seen as an alternative tourist destination.

In terms of airline share, the Korean Air-Asiana grouping will increase its market dominance after the two airlines and their subsidiaries merge.

However, South Korea's LCCs have gained a little bit of ground in terms of market share, versus the two major airlines.

The South Korean market is in the process of a major competitive shakeup, but international demand remains on a healthy trajectory.

Europe's 'FLAP' airports - Frankfurt, London Heathrow, Amsterdam Schiphol and Paris Charles de Gaulle each have large scale infrastructure investment programmes (apart from CDG, where a new terminal project was abandoned five years ago), which collectively add up to some USD75 billion over the next decade, the majority of it at Heathrow.

They individually need to do that in order to protect their own position not only amongst their peers but from an ever growing cluster of challengers in the Gulf and West Asia that are better positioned geographically to facilitate global travel in what is rapidly becoming a New World Order in the industry.

As this report reveals, all of these European airports face continuing economic, regulatory and political challenges to their ambitions while the fourth, Paris, has already seen that ambition crushed by a government that is slavishly committed to the new religion of environmentalism, one that will continue also to have an impact on the others.

It is difficult to identify a winner out of all of this. If one had to be selected it would be Frankfurt Airport if only because it continued with its third terminal scheme throughout the COVID-19 pandemic so that it can open in less than six months from now and because the management clearly learned a lesson from the debacle that was the construction of Berlin Brandenburg Airport.

Fire protection measures there are under constant scrutiny. Time-served airport management folk will immediately grasp the significance of that statement.

This is part two of a two-part report.

Broadly a decade and a half since its merger with Northwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines' prominence in the US market remains nearly unmatched, reflected in the airline's ability to withstand a raft of challenges in 2025 )(after initially believing it would produce record financial results this year).

Delta's durability also reflects a growing gap between the 'have' and 'have nots' in the US market, as some airlines continue to struggle financially, while attempting to determine their place within an evolving industry.

For now, it seems the competitive divide is continuing to grow, and Delta's prestige remains firmly in place.

Europe's 'FLAP' airports - Frankfurt, London Heathrow, Amsterdam Schiphol and Paris Charles de Gaulle each have large scale infrastructure investment programmes (apart from CDG, where a new terminal project was abandoned five years ago), which collectively add up to some USD75 billion over the next decade, the majority of it at Heathrow.

They individually need to do that in order to protect their own position not only amongst their peers but from an ever growing cluster of challengers in the Gulf and West Asia that are better positioned geographically to facilitate global travel in what is rapidly becoming a New World Order in the industry.

As this report reveals, all of these European airports face continuing economic, regulatory and political challenges to their ambitions while the fourth, Paris, has already seen that ambition crushed by a government that is slavishly committed to the new religion of environmentalism, one that will continue also to have an impact on the others.

It is difficult to identify a winner out of all of this. If one had to be selected it would be Frankfurt Airport if only because it continued with its third terminal scheme throughout the COVID-19 pandemic so that it can open in less than six months from now and because the management clearly learned a lesson from the debacle that was the construction of Berlin Brandenburg Airport.

Fire protection measures there are under constant scrutiny. Time-served airport management folk will immediately grasp the significance of that statement.

This is part one of a two-part report.

Malaysia Airlines parent Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) is making good progress on its fleet modernisation efforts, as it prepares to decide on further widebody orders and continues to take delivery of new aircraft.

MAG will soon launch a campaign to select the widebody aircraft type that will replace its current long haul fleet of leased Airbus A350s.

This represents the last major piece in the airline's long-term fleet strategy - at least, on the passenger side.

Putting the fleet plan in place has been one of the most important initiatives MAG Managing Director Izham Ismail has undertaken before his forthcoming retirement at the end of Jan-2026.

So it will be up to his successor, the former COO Nasaruddin Bakar, to see the plan through to completion.

MAG has faced major delays in the delivery of its existing orders for Boeing 737 MAXs and Airbus A330neos, although it is seeing recent signs of improvement as more aircraft arrive.

This is helping the airline increase its capacity, as well as providing major cabin product upgrades.

LOT Polish Airlines is to launch a service from Warsaw to San Francisco in summer 2026. This will bring its total of North America destinations up to seven, served through 10 routes (it also operates across the Atlantic from Krakow and Rzeszow).

Taking account also of its seven routes to Asia Pacific, LOT has no direct competitors on any of its long haul routes. Moreover, its Warsaw Chopin hub is the most significant long haul airport in Central Europe.

Expect further additions to LOT's intercontinental network.

Vietnam's tourist offer, along with visitor numbers, is growing steadily, helped partly by limited privatisation of airports and extensions to many of them, and by a drop-off in trade to neighbouring Thailand.

Now the SUN Group, the operator of the airport at Phú Quốc and elsewhere, has come up with a scheme to propel the island resort into the same league as others, like Bali in Indonesia, Phuket in Thailand and Jeju in Korea. This will be by launching a new airline, which will not compete with the existing international routes at Phú Quốc, but rather will maximise its presence in high volume domestic markets first as a launch pad to new international routes later.

Phú Quốc is well served from some countries and regions, but not others.

The new airline's fleet will grow from a projected eight aircraft by the end of 2025 to 100 by 2030, including long haul models.

The one clear advantage SUN Group has is in both horizontal and vertical integration. It controls its own supply chain in each of the sectors of air travel, accommodation and tourist facilities, while also owning a private airline for visitors with deep pockets.

This will be an intriguing experiment.

Others have gone before it in Europe and the Americas with a similar philosophy, and it has shown to be a winner.