Clearly, spanking new planes are not just the only thing Air India needs, but a professional and experienced airline management team is needed, as well. It needs a strategy rather than random decision making, otherwise, Air India will keep fishing for one-off travellers due to its low fares, but will not be an airline of choice

As a keen follower of aviation events, I landed up in Hyderabad last week for a day trip, with the main intention being to explore the much talked about Boeing 787 planes that Air India (AI) is lucky enough to get an early delivery on. India Aviation 2012 was on, and the Boeing Company brought the plane, which is almost ready for delivery to Air India, painted in the AI colours to showcase to the Indian audience and media. This new airframe which was developed from scratch to provide lighter weight of the plane and save about 15% fuel, Boeing has about 800 planes already on order, and AI will be one of the first few customers to receive these planes in the world, after All Nippon Airways of Japan received theirs in the last few months of 2011.

And still, I am disappointed that Air India will botch it up almost from the word go. I waited for a couple of hours to get my turn on the plane, as the bureaucrats and friends of Air India walked by me into the plane to be demonstrated on the breakthroughs in passenger aviation. I walked around the plane and from the outside, it looked royal. But as soon as I walked in, my heart sank because Air India did manage to disappoint, yet again.

Let’s go back a couple of steps before so that I can make my case. The airline product is basically not just the functional service of “how fast and conveniently you can get there”, but also the experience of getting there. Different airlines go about doing different things to make their passengers feel welcome and comfortable, and the longer you have to be in a metallic tube that flies without the option of change of scenery; the more the flying experience starts to count. Swiss Airlines gives away chocolates to say thank you and Lufthansa boasts of a special terminal for their First Class customers if you are flying at their Frankfurt terminal. Bottomline is that airlines invest a lot of money in developing a product that they hope will bring repeat customers, sometimes for the food, sometimes for the quality of the seat and sometimes for the in-flight entertainment system.

With AI, they had a golden chance to break through their staid image riding on these new planes. Air India’s perception amongst the frequent flyer community is that of an irregular airline which does not treat its passengers well. It gets you there, yes, but that’s about it. With comparable or cheaper prices to travel outside the country and offering a better quality of service, carriers outside the country have been able to gain their marketshare from AI. After all, if you got a better service and could take out the Air India stigma, why wouldn’t you go with the other carrier? 

But what Air India did was totally different. I hazard a guess on what happened. In typical bureaucratic fashion, Air India called tenders for installing seats and inflight entertainment products, and went with whatever perhaps was the cheapest; with no regard to design or aesthetics. Another airline, Germany’s Lufthansa, on the other hand, spent 3 billion euros to develop new seats for their business class passengers which they showcased in March 2012, as well. In the process of matching up the colour scheme with the Air India colours, some babu ordered rust-orange and red upholstery for all the seats, and designed a 238-seat large economy cabin on the 787 that looks like it was already used for 10 years before even flying one commercial flight.

People who will pay more money, up to five times more, to travel business class will be disappointed a bit, too. The airline has installed nice comfortable seats in those same orange and red colours upfront. Here, they’ve overlooked other finer ergonomic design aspects. Again, my argument is that these premium travellers would be disappointed and would not come back, or perhaps would choose to fly another airline which will offer them a similar price but a better experience. So, by not investing in making flying a memorable experience, Air India won’t be able to get out of this loss-making black hole because they are giving no reason to the flyers to do so.

The other aspect that will let AI down the loss making path is poor network planning and revenue management. Unconfirmed reports state that Air India will perhaps fly its first international flights on these planes on the Delhi–Melbourne route. This is a route they have been trying to launch for the longest time, but have been unsuccessful. Their direct competition on this sector would be Qantas, which after operating Mumbai–Sydney direct flights till 2010, withdrew from the market since it was losing about $20 million per annum on that route. 

Clearly, spanking new planes are not just the only thing Air India needs, but a professional and experienced airline management team is needed, as well. This airline needs a strategy rather than random decision making, and some experts who can make sure the full potential of the tools at their hand are made useful. Otherwise, Air India will keep fishing for one-off travellers due to their low fares, but will not be an airline of choice for the Indian affluent. Till then, my taxes will continue to finance the adventures of Air India. 

AJ writes a travel and aviation focussed blog from India at www.livefromalounge.com. You can follow him at @livefromalounge on Twitter.