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South Asia

Plain flying arrives in India
By Raja M

MUMBAI - "You can't board the plane unless you have the exact change;" "The captain is asking all the passengers to chip in a little for gas;" "You see a man with a gun, he's demanding to be let off the plane." Bada-boom.

The standard budget-airline jokes almost turned tragically true when flames spat out from the port engine of an ATR turbo-prop aircraft of India's first no-frills airline, Air Deccan, on September 26 as it taxied for takeoff.

The 48-seat flight from Hyderabad to Vijayawada was minutes from taking off, carrying India's civil aviation minister, Rajeev Pratap Rudy, as well as the president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Venkaiah Naidu, two members of parliament and a pack of journalists along for what they thought would be a pleasant ride.

Fortunately, the fire was quickly extinguished and the flight aborted. The passengers and the fledgling airline survived. The near-calamity happened when inaugurating another of Air Deccan's planned 20 routes. The airline's managing director, Captain G R Gopinath, dismissed the smoky episode as blown out of proportion.

Nonetheless, Air Deccan, which is part of helicopter charter specialists Deccan Aviation, has been operational for only about a month, but is hoping to catch fire in other ways. As a no-frills airline - it says it will cut fares by 50 percent - it is the exemplar of a relatively new way of traveling in Asia, where for decades service in the air has been legendary to Western passengers more accustomed to shoddy treatment and food on their own airlines. The famed Singapore Girl in her body-hugging kebaya, the hostesses from Thai International and Cathay Pacific, even lesser airlines like MAS (Malaysia) and others made their name wooing the weary traveler aboard and kneeling in the aisle of the plane while they served drinks with a smile. For a while in the 1980s and 1990s, the top five airlines in the world for business travel were Asian.

By contrast, Air Deccan offers fares at half those of other airlines, a cabin crew that consists as a rule of a single, polite flight attendant who wheels a trolley selling cookies, munchies and non-alcoholic drinks. It has firs-come-first-served seating, neither business class nor frequent flier mileage bonuses.

Air Deccan connects smaller towns, short-haul routes in the south Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. More budget airlines are popping up in India. Visaa Airways plans operations in India's western region. Its US$18.50 Mumbai-to-Pune fare is about $4 more than the railway first-class ticket. ModiLuft, a failed private domestic airline, is reincarnating itself as a budget-airline, Royal Airways.

With budget airlines elsewhere in the world like Ryan Air, Easy Jet and Air Asia succeeding, the big boys plan counter-attacks. "Taking on the no-frills, low-cost airlines" is the stated war cry of a two-day conference in London scheduled on October 15 and 16. Chaired by Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus, secretary general of the Association of European Airlines, the conference wants to dissect no-frills airlines.

"How should regular airlines compete with the low cost airlines?" the promo asks potential delegates. "How could no frills-operators succeed where others failed in the past two years? Where is their Achilles heel? How can full-service airlines take them on?"

India's domestic big boys are either condescending or offering the peace pipe. Jet Airways chief operating officer Peter Luethi was quoted as saying that he would be "surprised" if no-frills airlines succeeded in India. But better join 'em than fight 'em was the motto of Indian Airlines. On September 24, it offered Air Deccan an alliance: be our feeder service to longer routes.

"We are considering the offer,"Raju Srinivasan, head of human resources development at Deccan Air, told Asia Times Online. As with the other top brass in Deccan Air, Srinivasan, too, was an Indian Air Force pilot for 25 years. He sees a big market ripe to be plucked. "Current statistics say India has only 40,000 air travelers a day out of a population of one billion. There is enough potential for us to grow."

The global aviation industry regards India and China as two high-growth markets. India's domestic air travel market expanded by 2.8 percent in the first half of this financial year, up from a 5.9 percent dip last year. The Airports Authority of India said 13.6 million passengers flew through its 128 airports terminals in April-September, compared with 13.2 million a year earlier.

Indian Airlines, Jet Airways and Sahara Airlines rule India's domestic skies. But Air Deccan could gnaw into their market, just as Air Asia is harrying MAS. Air Bangkok in Thailand, Merpati Airline in Indonesia, Dragon Air in Hong Kong and Cebu Air in the Philippines are part of over 50 budget airlines operating worldwide, with four in Africa, 25 in Europe, 18 in North America and four in Australia and New Zealand.

Budget airlines benefit from a growing school of thought that de-glamorizes air travel and sees it as merely getting from point A to point B in the quickest, cheapest and safest way possible. "Why pay extra any way for in-flight service we don't get?" demands Amy Fernandes, a columnist and editor in the Times Group, Mumbai. She will have lots of yay-sayers.

Apart from Jet Airways, India's airlines are a poor advertisement for the country's famous hospitality. Tired, often obese crew members, forced smiles, sloppy service and poor maintenance don't exactly match the pretty advertisements extolling the joys of flying.

Budget airlines also attract short-distance travelers who have no use for in-flight hospitality. Business travelers commuting daily between cities, for instance, prefer uninterrupted sleep in early-morning flights. "I am already seeing repeat customers and not just budget travelers in my passenger lists," Srinivasan said. "I see executives from top companies."

Besides benefiting from low expectations, no-frills airlines enjoy frills such as the Airports Authority of India offering discounts to aircraft below 21 tonnes. It helps slash their landing, navigation and baggage charges by 50 percent. Air Deccan also turned its six leased aircraft into billboards to draw revenue. The Sun Microsystems logo gleams on the fuselage.

Other cost-cutting measures include ticketing largely through the Internet to avoid travel agency costs. Air Deccan passengers can print out their tickets and exchange them for a boarding pass when checking in.

From September 15, Air Asia in Malaysia has been offering a short message service (SMS) facility to buy tickets. Users can choose flights, confirm reservations and make payments through text messaging. Such guerilla marketing to offer lower fares could make budget airlines the patron saints of 21st century mass air travel: cut out the snob value and bring flying within reach of more people willing to swap comfort for a lesser bill - at least for short distances.
Raja M is an independent writer based in Mumbai, India.

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Oct 1, 2003

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