Which domestic airline should you choose?

I had occasion, quite recently, to write about earning miles from flights but without the bother of flying. In that post, I mentioned (obviously as a joke) about identifying sectors of delays, to see if I could earn more AI miles using cancelled flights. The problem was, that this escalated to somewhat of a mini-obsession.

But if I had to do that, I would first have to get a hang of what the overall timeliness factors were from each location, and then identify which specific flights are routinely delayed excessively. Which got me researching, and I found enough first-level information to figure out which domestic airline you should choose, which is what this post is all about.

Recent trends in Indian aviation - at least from a customer angle - all point to a focussed pitch towards on-time performance (or OTP). While Indigo has always flaunted about its "Indigo Standard Time", SpiceJet has recently taken to this, with their all-time high (and best among peers) on-time performance in December 2013 and for a couple of months after that. AI, Jet (including JetLite and JetKonnect), and GoAir don't shout from rooftops, for reasons best known to both them (and sometimes, us).

So I decided I'd have a look at the 2013 OTP data, and come up with some analysis and thoughts, and here's what I found.

The numbers in the table are the %s of OTP for each major domestic airline in India, from the 6 metros of Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. The last row with overall OTP data is for all airports in India. The scale moves from red being poor, to green being good. NA = data Not Available.

So here are my thoughts on the reasons behind this kind of pattern:

• Fundamentally, one needs to keep in mind that there's a knock-on effect that can get into play. It is very rare that a delay (other than a minor one) is compensated during flight on that segment. There is also much needs to be done on ground between flights, and saving a lot of time there isn't really possible. Taken together, more often than not delays will have a cascading effect.
• Overall, and not surprisingly, Indigo has the best OTP statistics. They do focus quite a lot on OTP, by quick turnarounds, minimal time on the ground, part-cleaning up cabins prior to landing, etc. This reduces the knock-on effect too.
• Jet Airways (including its affiliates JetLite and JetKonnect) has a mix of good and bad OTP rates. However, it benefits by having a large number of flights it operates each day, over which the averages tend to even out. Also, their OTP for departures at smaller airports is far higher, and I've even seen Jet frequently leave before schedule - which helps shave off some of the delays, in-flight.
• Outside of BOM and DEL, GoAir operates (comparatively) very few flights from other stations. I really can't bring myself to call them a pan-India airline. GoAir is based in Mumbai, and uses BOM as a hub for most of their operations, and hence I can see why their OTP in BOM is high.
• Air India is perpetually plagued by employee indiscipline or simply an apathy towards service. While their expected entry into Star Alliance has made them pull up their socks quite a bit lately, that's mostly in 2014, so this data (which is from 2013) isn't really representative. Having said that, there some pockets that are highly unionized, which explains the general rate of AI's performance.
• Delhi and Kolkata (for different reasons) have rather poor OTP statistics - Delhi because there's just way to much air traffic, and Kolkata because of employee unions (you know what I mean). I don't have any personal disregard for either city - in fact, I really love both cities for many things including their history and food cultures. So unless the airline takes initiative for OTP, don't expect the location factor to contribute much.
• What surprises me is the high level of OTP in Mumbai - not a single airline a belo-90% OTP rate, which is amazing, considering just how congested the Mumbai airspace has become. And mind you, we're talking only domestic airlines, to the new Terminal 2 has no voice in this analysis. But then, Mumbai as a city is known for its doggedness and the never-give-up attitude of its people, so it is likely that much of that has also rubbed off on flight ops out of that city!

So I guess the above gives you a good idea of what airline to fly, out of which city, if you have control over those factors. Do you think your experience reflects this?