For a pie in the sky

The days of bruising price wars in the airline business are over; low-cost airlines are now trying to differentiate themselves on service offerings.
Taking a dig at each other is not new to this industry and began with Kingfisher Airlines' ad campaigns targeted at Jet Airways in 2007 and 2008.
The country's two major private carriers were going the Pepsi-Coke way. The competition was no longer restricted to achieving higher passenger loads but had moved to grabbing eyeballs.
However, the crash of Lehman Brothers in the latter half of 2008 and the global economic crises that followed broke the back of the global aviation industry, and India was no different.
During the slowdown, “Cost-cutting and ‘managing' in the downturn was the dominant sentiment,” said Mudra Connext's Executive Vice-President, Manas Mishra, in response to an e-mail question. Mudra Connext is the media arm of Mudra Group.
And now, with everyone talking of an economic recovery and the return of good times, will one witness a ‘war of words' or ‘price wars' being played out in the marketing domain again?
“Lessons have been learnt (by the airlines). (It is) unlikely (that) we'll see airlines behaving like the soft drink and mobile phone service categories,” said MediaVest Worldwide's India-West, General Manager, Dinesh Rathore, in response to an e-mail question.
According to Mishra of Mudra Connext, “Airlines are not focused on lower fares. They are back to focusing on customer service instead of cost-cutting (for example, questioning the rule of ‘no meals on economy airlines'). They surely want to invest in brand building — especially the ones that have weathered the storm well. SpiceJet is a good example … they have a TV campaign running now.”
11/03/10 Shubhra Tandon/Business Line

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Mar 2010, Low Cost General Mar 2010