|
|
Tighten your seat belts as the scream of engines rises to a crescendo and the nose lifts up. Boom! The Indian budget airline industry is taking to the skies. Wallet-friendly aviation players are cropping up, much to the delight of the Indian budget air
traveller. Enjoy your journey, but sorry, snacks won’t be part of the menu.
It took some time for the budget airline industry to catch on in India. The concept originated in the west and was quickly picked up in the East Asian countries. Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines was the front runner in Britain, while Qantas took the major chunk of the Australian budget skies. In the post- WTC days of aerial terror, seat occupancies in established carriers crashed, leaving them to operate on losses. That was the time when the wallet-friendly carriers took off and still operated with profit margins. The
non-frillers were characterized by few on-board services, elimination of catering and assistance services and little inflight glitz. Basically, a barebones mode of aerial transport from Point A to Point B. As Captain G R
Gopinath, MD, Air Deccan unabashedly claims, “We are the Udipi hotel in airline industry.”
Air Deccan can claim credit for bringing the budget airline concept to the Indian skies. Started last year, the Bangalore-based company is a subsidiary of Deccan Aviation, which operates chartered air services, mainly with helicopters. Air Deccan unleashed cut-throat competition in the aviation scene with fares mostly equalling similar train fares. In response, leading domestic airlines like Indian Airlines, Jet Air and Sahara Airlines slashed rates and unveiled Advanced Purchase schemes (Apex) to take on the new challenger. Competition, as always, brought the best to the customer. “Our mission is to keep our fares low and keep lowering them with time,” says Air Deccan’s
Gopinath. Air Deccan is initially planning to tap the budget air traveler to and from metros to non-metros.
But competition was not far behind. Barely a year after Air Deccan took to the skies comes news of Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airline. In June this year, Mallya announced his plans to take to the skies with his own Indian
no-friller. The flamboyant chairman of the multi-crore UB group is not known to do things half-way. And Mallya will be flying on the wings of the well-established Kingfisher brand. Bangalore’s King of Good Times, a trained pilot himself, went the whole hog with plans for a 16-strong Airbus A-320 fleet to run its operations. (Four have been ordered from Airbus, with options to buy eight more, and operating another four on lease basis.)
"It is always good to welcome a new customer to the Airbus family, and we derive great satisfaction in being its partner in delivering comfort and value to passengers," says Airbus President and CEO Noël
Forgeard. Kingfisher is investing Rs 150 crore to kick off operations. Expect a dazzling show. Mallya’s birds will be taking to the skies in early 2005.
Here’s a sneak preview: Kingfisher Airlines, Mallya says, will not be a run-of-the mill Indian budget airline. Expect a value-added designer
no-friller. Kingfisher Airlines will be emphasizing on spunky, well-done interiors and trained airhostesses. Each A-320 will carry 180 passengers. Borrowing from the Kingfisher beer tagline of “The King of Good Times”, Mallya is pushing the theme of “Fly The Good Times” for his unborn baby. Kingfisher is planning to capture the Indian budget airline market with the twin engines of ‘special flying experience’ and ‘value for money’. Contests like `Kingfisher flying face of the month' are on cards.
The Kingfisher air hostesses will be selected through a nationwide contest. Expect designer staff uniforms. The Kingfisher
"Funliners" will have in-flight silent auctions for lifestyle products and sales of packaged food and beverages. Mallya is sure to leverage on the Kingfisher brand of exuberant, youthful and fast-paced image. The man behind the Kingfisher swimsuit calendar can be expected to put up a stiff challenge to Air Deccan and other low-cost aspirants. To begin with, Kingfisher Airline has roped in model Katrina Kaif to endorse the airline. We hope you get it. Don’t expect an Udipi hotel from
Mallya. Await the smart fast food joint.
Vijay Mallya already has a company called UB Air, which is a non-scheduled airline. He will be probably moving the civil aviation authorities to convert this licence to one for a scheduled airline. Kingfisher Airline charges are expected to be higher than Air Deccan’s, but substantially less than those of the big players.
Even as the budget carrier battle hots up, the airline biggies are not sitting idle. Country’s flag carrier Air-India recently announced its move to set up a subsidiary called Air India Express, which will be an international low-cost airline. Air India Express will be taking to skies in March 2005. There will be a fleet of 14 Boeing 737-800s, which will be taken on dry lease in three phases. These aircraft will have 181 Economy Class seats in single class configuration. The new airline will operate 63 flights per week when six aircraft are inducted on dry lease at the time of the launch. With the induction of four more aircraft, effective winter 2005, Air India Express will operate 38 additional flights, and add another 26 flights in the third phase effective April 2006, when four more aircraft will join the fleet. Thus, within a year of operations, Air-India Express will operate a total of 127 flights with 14 aircraft to destinations in the Gulf and South-east Asia.
All Air India Express flights in the first phase, operated on Quick Turn Around
(QTA) basis, will cover three online points in
Kerala, Delhi-UAE/Oman and Chennai-Singapore/Kuala Lumpur. In the second phase, Air India Express will operate daily flights on Chennai-Dubai, twice-daily flights on Delhi-Dubai and Chennai-Singapore sectors. In the third phase, flights will be operated between
Kerala, Mumbai and Doha/Bahrain; between Kerala, Mumbai, Chennai and Kuwait; and between
Kolkata/Guwahati and Bangkok.
Meanwhile, Australian carrier Qantas Airways is planning to include Indian cities among many others for its low-cost airline to be launched in November this year. The as-yet-unnamed airline will be operated from Singapore, says Qantas Airways manager (India & South Asia) Khursheed Lam. The inclusion of Indian cities for Qantas low-cost low-cost airline is subject to bilateral seat sharing agreement and code-sharing, according to Ms Lam.
Bilateral discussions over seats and code-sharing between the two countries are likely to be held next week. "We have a flexible approach as far as flights, destinations in India and code sharing are concerned,” Qantas Airways, head of sales & distribution, Rob Gurney said. The planned Qantas budget airline is a move to participate in the booming intra-Asia travel mart. The no-frill airline is set to commence with four A320 aircraft in November out of the eight A320 aircraft, for which lease agreements have been signed. The airline has plans to build a fleet of more than 20 aircrafts over the next three years.
The ambitious plans notwithstanding, the history of private sector aviation in India is not very heartening. Ratan Tata is still sore that the Air India nationalisation left the Tata group high and dry. Tata’s late attempts to bid in the botched Air India privatization process came a cropper. Air India divestment plan itself was abandoned. Earlier, Indian private airline operators like NEPC Airlines and East West Airlines disappeared without a trace. Every few weeks, leading private carrier Jet Airways is faced without questions about its funding and promoters. It was Arun Shourie himself who said when he was divestment minister that he doesn’t know if Jet Air is an Indian or a foreign firm!
Meanwhile, another low-cost Indian carrier is reportedly facing problems in starting up. The Bangalore-based AirOne Feeder Airline, was supposed to start its flights with two Embraers from Brazil. The delay in Embraer delivery has forced AirOne Feeder to postpone its launch twice already. AirOne is now expected to take off only in early 2005. The company is looking at leasing two new Embraers with 50-seat capacity. The Embraer brand is not generally used in India. AirOne is believed to be targeting non-metro routes to corner its share of the market.
As the catfight hots up, expect fur to fly. Air Deccan says its aim to keep reducing fares further and further. More carriers, both Indian and foreign are expected to come up. Airline industry experts believe that there is space for at least five domestic low-cost airlines in India. Meanwhile, expect the big daddies of domestic aviation to match up with cost-cutting and aggressive Apex schemes. The battle for budget skies has just begun.
JM |
The
magic begins! Read all about 
