Air Asia Rs 5 fare available, and an analysis of proposed routes

I wrote yesterday about Air Asia starting commercial flights from 12 June 2014, with ticket sales starting today (30 May 2014). The original expectation was an all-in Rs 990 fare (just under the Rs 1,000 price point), which would have been dirt cheap anyway. It is another matter that SpiceJet attempted to start a sale late last evening, but I think Air Asia has trumped them all with a Rs 5 fare (taxes extra), valid for the first 15,000 tickets booked on their website. The rest will be at up to Rs 990 a ticket, though some fares are available in between those price points too.

With an assigned call-sign of I5, the current flight schedules of Air Asia India are:

I5 1320 BLR-GOI 1510-1625, I5 1321 GOI-BLR 1655-1805 (From 12 June 2014)
I5 1211 BLR-MAA 0555-0655, I5 1212 MAA-BLR 0730-0830 (From 19 June 2014)
I5 1217 BLR-MAA 1835-1935, I5 1218 MAA-BLR 2050-2150 (From 19 June 2014)

It is interesting that all three of their current flights originate in Bangalore, which lends more credence to the point I made yesterday about Air Asia moving its base from Chennai to Bangalore. My thoughts on the schedule are:

• I'd prefer a morning flight from BLR to GOI. However, morning flights into GOI are not practically possible, due to GOI being a military airport and their operations and exercises are done till about noon or so.
• I quite like the GOI-BLR flight timing, which makes it the last flight of the day on that route. The 1655 hrs departure also gives passengers a bit more time at the hotel, before having to check out (4 pm late checkouts won't be of much use here, though!).
• I don't find the BLR-MAA 5.55 am flight very alluring, given the distance from the city to BLR airport, and the prospect of a really late night as opposed to a very early morning start
• The 1835 BLR-MAA is a good flight as it fills the gap between 1615 hrs (Jet) and 1905 hrs (Indigo) flights.
• On the MAA-BLR route, both of Air Asia's flights are around the same time as quite a few other flights by other airlines. That may well be good thinking by Air Asia given their fares vis-a-vis what other airlines charge.

The fares are also quite interesting. I mentioned above, the 15,000 tickets for Rs 5, which are almost all sold out. Airport taxes are additional. Other tickets are to be priced up to Rs 990. I looked up some sample routes, and was able to even come up with a Rs 5 on the GOI-BLR route!

Naturally both the Rs 5 and Rs 990 are promotional fares, and the flexible price tickets are far more expensive, at Rs 5,900 on this sector. 

I'm looking forward to the prices stabilising a bit more, as that will show the expected consistent fares that Air Asia will charge going forward. I also don't expect other airlines to engage in fare wars, at least not with Air Asia, simply because Air Asia has nothing to lose and everything to gain by offering really low prices. That's not necessarily true of other airlines, who have been bleeding financially.