Boeing and Airbus both have landed quite a large amount of orders this year for respective aircrafts. Boeing, in fact broke its own 15+ year record and sold more planes than ever -- almost 4 times as much as last year! So, if such big planes are being sold, somebody must be buying them. With US airlines moving under bankruptcy protection faster than flights taking off on a snowy Chicago morning .. its the foreign airlines which are holding up Boeing and Airbus. AirIndia was a major customer for Boeing in 2005 .. with total orders amounting to 68 aircraft. [Boeing figures]
Its quite clear that while the American airline industry is in the doldrums, the rest of the world is doing quite well in that respect. Some European airlines had a scare or two in the recent past, but most of them are doing rather well. In India too .. all airlines are doing exceedingly well. This just illustrates the point that I have been trying to make all along. That the US Airline problems are not just due to low passenger demand and high fuel prices. All the flights I see nowadays are full, and fuel prices are high for all the airlines all over the world. Bad Management coupled with a lack of foresight and the ability to fall back on bankruptcy protection, I suspect, had more to do with it.
Airlines in India are doing very well with lots of people in the queue to enter the space. There are likes of SpiceJet, Kingfisher, Air Deccan and many more trying to get a slice of this cake. The USP for all of these is simple... provide a Delhi - Mumbai flight costing less than the Rajdhani / 2nd AC train fare... which actually makes sense. People can save on a lot of time by spending less (or equal or some more money... who cares).
But all this is also creating problems for the passengers... People are not treated properly by the airline staff (most of whom are outsourced). Flights often get delayed (these guys make most use of these aircrafts by flying them on different routes back to back). Passengers do not get hotel accomodation for delayed late night flights... and lots more...
And during all of this... Air Sahara was up for sale. Kingfisher was eying to buy it but then Vijay Mallya had other plans. I think we will see a lot of consolidation in the coming 2/3 years in this industry in India.
Posted by: Shekhar at January 10, 2006 03:20 PMAnya, I dont agree with you when you say that the Indian airlines are doing well - I think they might be filling their seats, but I doubt that they are making much money - And soon, some of these are going to falter and there will be some consolidation.
Posted by: Ideamani at January 18, 2006 03:56 PM