Air India spreading its wings far and wide

Although last year witnessed many challenges across the field of aviation, Air India continued its journey as the leader of the skies venturing out to new destinations and ensuring their rapid growth trajectory. The regional office in the UAE has been one of the most active hubs across the network.

TT BUREAU

The 2017 Arabian Travel Award-winner Air India’s Middle East office has been thriving since the past few years, supported by a very proactive team led by Regional Manager-GMEA, Melwin D’Silva. It was a very busy year with many new routes inaugurated and expansion plans in the pipeline. Some of the key routes were the San Francisco and Washington flights, Vienna and Stockholm flights in Europe. The low-cost arm, Air India Express has also been performing very well in the region and there has been quite a number of new routes which were unveiled over the past two years.
D’Sliva shares, “We’ve been spreading our wings across the globe connecting two important destinations in the USA and two in Europe. In terms of the budget or low cost carrier, we unveiled many key domestic destinations to our portfolio such as Varanasi, Amritsar, Lucknow, Kochi, and Calicut from India connecting to Sharjah, Riyadh, Ras Al Khaimah and Al Ain. Travel agents form a very important component of our distribution channel and we’ve been coming up with very attractive schemes for them such as PLB scheme. We also ensure that we give our customers with market-driven baggage allowances from time to time. We were earlier restricting the baggage allowance to 20 kg but now we have increased the baggage allowance to 30 kg. Even in Air India Express we come up with very friendly schemes for passengers such as allowing 40 kg baggage when required.”
In the past three years, Air India has been in the forefront with their growth plan, offering attractive rates and amenities onboard which has ensured a rapid yet steady growth from the region. The introduction of the six freedom fares where the fares that were competitive to go to and from the gulf region over India to any point further; i.e. for e.g. South East Asia, Australia, etc. saw a further increase in passenger numbers to avail this offer.
“As far as my region is concerned we are now flying to Delhi and Kochi on a Dreamliner which is doing very well. Riyadh to Calicut is another new route. We have a combination of 777 aircraft to Jeddah. These are the types of promotions that are been done with the passenger in view and this combination of actions and promotions has helped air India to retain our share,” D’Silva adds.
He concludes, “The market has become very competitive to maintain load factors. It is a meticulous job and minute-by-minute you have to monitor your loads, fares, how you are looking compared to the competitors. Based on the analysis, we planned a three-way strategy on how to retain our passengers, how to support our travel partners and how to be visible in the market. These focused strategies ensure our passenger base is retained, our distribution channel and travel partners supports us and we are visible in the market.” Air India, as the national carrier, has many duties towards the nation and they work very closely with the local embassy and ambassadors to extend help during trying times.