bmi Places India As Potential Offline Market

Charmaine Fernz - Mumbai

Ravi Pikle

bmi UK’s second largest full service airline has its main operational base at London Heathrow where it holds 14 per cent of all take off and landing slots. The airline operates over 2,000 flights a week with a fleet of 41 jet aircraft. With an offline presence in the Indian market, the carrier certainly has aggressive plans for the coming year. Says Ravi Pikle, managing director, Discover The World Marketing - India, “India ranks as one of our top two offline markets, the first being Japan. Besides, we are growing our offline presence in India in a big way. In that regard, we have tied up with all online carriers in India, which works out the connectivity factor.”

Having laid out the plans for the Indian sub-continent, Pikle adds further, “Our growth in revenue with regards to the Indian market in 2003 was a 15 per cent increase over the previous year, while our target for 2004 over 2003 is an increase of 30 per cent. To generate this increase, we have launched India specific promotional fares called Value Pricing. With this offer one can buy side trips apart from buying the thoroughfares and they are pretty affordable. One also has the freedom to travel wherein there is no limitation on the number of coupons for issuance, ticketing can be done within 72 hours of reservation and a full refund can be obtained (less the processing fee) if reservations and tickets are cancelled before departure date of first flight. This offer is apart from the regular ‘Discover Europe Pass (QPASS)’. We can also vouch for the fact that we offer the best prices. For example: London-Paris- 26 pounds, London-Amsterdam - 30 pounds. However, there are certain conditions that apply such as once the tickets are booked, if any date changes or cancellations or re-issuance is required, a penalty of 25 pounds is charged after issuance. Subsequently, one has to go through an agents for these promotional fares.”