|
Air Arabia Commences India Services
To Look At Southern Destinations
Charmaine Fernz - Mumbai
Travel to the Gulf is set to become more affordable with the
launch of the first international low cost carrier in India - Air Arabia. Having
touched down on India on March 26, 2005, the carrier plans to make its mark
in Indian air travel. Rohit Ramachandran, manager - India, Air Arabia
elaborated to Express Travel & Tourism about his carrier's
plans to tap the Indian traveller.
"As the first international carrier to start services from India, we will
stick closely to the low cost model, thereby targeting the value conscious traveller.
Having commenced services in just October 2003, with Bahrain as our first destination,
we already fly to 15 destinations. Mumbai will be our sixteenth destination
in less than a year. We have already broken even in the first year itself with
a marginal profit," he said.
Ramachandran explains the reasons behind the success, saying, "The company
has just 250 employees and a standard fleet of five new A320s. Our booking is
done via the internet-based reservation system and we use only e-tickets. We
offer food on board, which is catered for, from our Sky Café at a nominal
cost, thereby saving on catering costs. For our Indian traveller, the food would
be customised to cater to their needs. Apart from all these cost-saving measures,
we also offer our passengers convenience in travel in the form of seat pitch,
which is 34 inches (the normal being just 29-31 inches). Being an all-economy
airline with 150 seats, we will fly daily from Mumbai to Sharjah initially.
In the coming months, we would look at some southern destinations as they are
potential points for any Gulf carrier."
 Elaborating
on the airline's marketing strategies, Ramachandran said, "Though we are
an international carrier, we will customise our business model to every country
we fly to. Indian travel agents can register online with a username and password
to book on Air Arabia and would be paid a handling fee for their services. We
cannot dispute the fact that travel agents definitely form an integral part
of our distribution chain. In the Gulf to enhance the carrier's awareness, we
have tied up with the UAE Postal Office, which is a first for any airline. Through
this exercise, the traveller can book from any outlet thereby making air travel
on our airline more accessible. We would look at similar options in India especially
with good hospitals and budget hotels. The other modes of marketing communication
would be through partnerships, alliances, online marketing and emails, which
are cost-effective mediums. Our aim is to be a strong regional player catering
to regions such as the Gulf, Middle East, Africa, Indian subcontinent and in
future at CIS countries, Afghanistan and Iraq."
"2006 onwards, the airline will add two aircraft per year to its fleet.
Profitability and commercial viability are also very important aspects. To further
enhance our Indian customer satisfaction, we are in talks with Indian Airlines
for domestic connectivity, as they would be handling the ground services for
us. Indian Airlines as a carrier is very professional and thinks commercially.
The other areas of our focus would be safety, punctuality and ease of travel.
We would also work closely with Sharjah tourism to promote tourism to the country.
The airline-tourism nexus, we have noticed,works well in the tourism arena,"
explained Ramachandran. The carrier is also presently studying the options of
having a simple frequent flyer programme, for a future launch with an unspecified
time-frame. It also plans to tap the potential business travel segment from
India mainly the three components - small traders, oil companies having to and
fro traffic and middle management for MICE traffic. Apart from these segments,
the others would certainly be leisure and VFR traffic to the Gulf as India would
be the largest contributor after UAE.
|
