Group 1: Microeconomics Analysis of Civil Aviation Industry – Indigo
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Group 1: Microeconomics Analysis of Civil Aviation Industry – Indigo Executive Summary India is one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world. With the liberalization of the Indian aviation sector, the industry had witnessed a transformation with the entry of the privately- owned full-service airlines and low cost carriers. As of May 2006, private carriers accounted for around 75% share of the domestic aviation market. The sector has also seen a significant increase in number of domestic air travel passengers. Some of the factors that have resulted in higher demand for air transport in India include the growing middle class and its purchasing power, low airfares offered by low cost carriers, the growth of the tourism industry in India, increasing outbound travel from India, and the overall economic growth of India. From the analyst point of view though this market is facing lot of issues and challenges it is growing at the rate of 18 percent per year. Many factors are contributing to this growth such as increase in disposable income of the population, industrial growth in the country or change in government policies such as FDI. From this perspective Indian market is lucrative There is a larger working population with better capability to spend and upgrade their lifestyle. This has provided opportunity for low cost players to tap the market share and improve their profitability. Industry has faced many challenges but is showing a sustainable growth. Many new players are entering into this market. Policy change such as 49 percent investment through foreign direct investment (FDI) is changing the face of the industry. Introduction The civil aviation industry in India has emerged as one of the fastest growing industries in the country during the last three years. India is currently considered the third largest domestic civil aviation market in the world. India is expected to become the world’s largest domestic civil aviation market in the next 10 to 15 years.Highlights of airline industry. - India’s passenger traffic grew at 16.52 per cent year on year to reach 308.75 million. It grew at a CAGR of 12.72 per cent during FY06-FY18. - Domestic passenger traffic grew YoY by 18.28 per cent to reach 243 million in FY18 and is expected to become 293.28 million in FY20E. - In FY18, domestic freight traffic stood at 1,213.06 million tonnes. - During Apr-Aug 2018, passenger traffic in India stood at 141.77 million (domestic passenger traffic 113.44 million, international traffic at 28.32 million). Total freight traffic handled in India stood at 1.49 million tonnes during the same time. - During Apr-Aug 2018, domestic aircraft movement stood at 0.89 million while international aircraft movement stood at 0.19 million. As of May 2018, there are nearly 558 commercial aircraft in operation in India. IndiGo is a low-cost airline headquartered at Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is the largest airline in India by passengers carried and fleet size, with a 41.3% domestic market share as of June 2018. It is also the largest individual Asian low-cost carrier in terms of jet fleet size and passengers carrier. The airline operates to 57 destinations both domestic and international. It has its primary hub at Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi. It has maintained it's market share by delivering low cost trips as it's competitive advantage. There are various strategies implemented to ensure the low costs are sustainable while slowly venturing into various markets including international market. Adaptation of technology in it's function shows a positive approach to the future where it can reduce it's fuel cost and become more efficient. Micro-Economic analysis of IndiGo airlines: Factors affecting Demand: Aviation Industry demand is typically a derived demand from the need for individuals to travel or commute i.e. flights demand is derived from business travel, holidays, family trips, etc. but not from just the need or want to sit in a flight. The factors that impact the demand for Indigo are: 1. Price: This one of the key factors that impact the demand for Indigo as it is working on the low cost strategy. With all the other players in the industry ensuring a lower price is a definite benefit. Any increase in the price does adversely affect the demand due to higher price elasticity (Steep Demand Curve) 2. Personal Income: Another key factor is personal income, which is directly linked to price of the tickets too. If the personal income is on the lower side, the elasticity is higher and vice versa. In India, the personal disposable income for the majority is on the lower side which implies the demand is highly elastic. 3. Economic Climate of the Country: This factor includes factors like GDP, exchange rate and economic state of the country. Considering that Indigo is a domestic airline, the impact of these have a lower impact on the demand. 4. Demographic: In a survey it was identified that more trips are business related and hence a country with larger section of population in the working age implies higher demands. 5. Season Demands: The demand is higher during holiday and festival seasons which reduces the elasticity as seen most of the airlines hike the prices during festivals and holiday seasons. 6. Preference: Flight selections are often dependent on preferences of the services, food type, duration of flights, seat availability, number of stops etc. 7. Substitutes: Substitutes like road and rail travels have a huge impact on the demand for flights in India as the income for the majority of population is lower however with the competition from low cost airlines like indigo has reduced the effect of these substitutes. 8. Existing Entities: The pricing strategies used by the competitors impact the demand for flights. This increases the price elasticity of demand for Indigo. Price Elasticity of Demand: Going by the definition, price elasticity of demand is a measure of responsiveness of consumers to change in the price of a product. An airline industry is extremely price elastic which means that the passengers/customers can easily choose a different carrier without having a brand loyalty. IndiGo airline although being a low-cost carrier is relatively elastic. Significant changes in price will have a considerable amount of impact in the demand as IndiGo offers only economy seats. IndiGo having significant domestic market share (41.3%)due to its efficient, low-cost operations by attracting customers with low fare.Only economic seats and implementation of non-price competition (punctuality) are also factors enabling the low cost operations of IndiGo. IndiGo or any airline industry usually cannot reduce the price just to increase the number of customers or vice versa, as this will not lead to a significant impact. Considering IndiGo’s major domestic market share, the price elasticity of demand coefficient for domestic air tickets for IndiGo is less compared to the PED’s of other airlines offering domestic services. Competitors, Substitutes, Complements and market leader Five main IndiGo airlines competitors are Jet Airways, Vistara, Air India, Go Air and Spicejet.Airlines being the fastest modes of transports face threats from substitutes. Some of the substitutes being from different modes of transportation such as a car, bus, train and boats.The main complements to airline travel are hotels and rental cars. This interdependence is evident by the frequent bundling packages offered by airlines, hotels, and rental cars.Companies such as Expedia, Travelocity, and Priceline seek to capitalize off of connecting these industries together in order to simplify the process for consumers. Indigo continues its dominance in the Airline industry with approx. 40% share. Production The Production function shows the relationship between inputs and output. In particular, it shows the maximum amount of output that can be produced by a given level of inputs. Production function also describes technology which shows relationship between input and output. Now, of course, there's a problem with measuring output as well. When it comes to things like steel, agricultural products, and other such products, that is quite easy to measure output. It's much more difficult to measure output when it comes to services. Indigo is the fastest growing domestic airlines. It has 21% of the domestic market share which has low-cost and premium operations. Indigo has the highest load factor of 89.40%. Airlines has planned to step into international market. Indian Aviation industry has served 90 million domestic passengers and 20 million International passengers. Operations with 920 airlines, at 4200 Airports with 27000 Aircrafts. Indigo has always been valuing customer with affordable fares, on-time performance and hasslefree service which is also their mission statement. Strengths of Indigo airlines is their business model, High brand awareness, cost leadership, High efficiency, Innovation, Age of Equipment, Tie Ups, Continuous Improvements, Debt free. For production function, we can consider various inputs for Indigo’s aviation industry, which are having low Turnaround Time, Aircraft Utilization, Young fleet of aircraft hence less maintenance issues, Indigo has lower employees per aircraft. Since the aircraft fleet is still new, it has fuel efficient engine, zero inventory of components and the main factor is same configuration of all aircrafts providing flexibility in allocation. The output of the Indigo Airlines has maximized due to various factors like low price tickets, point to point routes, frequent and reliable departures and targeting high load factors. Even cost leadership and competencies has impacted the production function of Indigo’s airlines where there is no free meals, strategic usage of disposable bags for quick cleaning of aircrafts before landing, highest number of seats, light weight seats, internet reservations, cost and service culture, human resource training on efficient processes, centralized operations controls center, highest number of CAT-III compliant pilots Considering that it functions on almost 90% capacity with low cost , it can be said that they are able to achieve economies of scale.