Jet Air diverting more seats to low-cost Konnect

Hyderabad: Jet Airways is diverting a significant number of its daily seats to its low-cost sub-brand, Jet Konnect, to shore up seat factor, even as the move is resulting in lower earnings per seat.
“At present, about 50 per cent of our daily departures of 270 are being offered through Jet Konnect. We plan to increase our offerings through this no-frills economy class service to 65-75 per cent (of our capacity) by the last quarter of 2009,” Mr Sudheer Raghavan, Jet Airways’ Chief Commercial Officer, told Business Line on the sidelines of a press conference to announce the launch of its Hyderabad-Dubai service, on Thursday.
Premium seats
With demand slackening for premium class seats in the wake of the downturn, airlines are wooing passengers through their low-cost windows. Full service carrier Kingfisher too has started operating more flights on its low-cost variant, Red.
The increased focus on low-cost offerings has contributed significantly to the industry’s increased carriage of passengers, though at the cost of falling yields.
“Our seat factor increased to 69 per cent in July, although yields dropped by about 15 per cent,” Mr Raghavan said.
14/08/09 Amit Mitra/Business Line

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Categories: Jet Airways Aug 2009, Low Cost General Aug 2009