New Delhi: As Jet Airways gets ready to celebrate 25 years of flying, Vinay Dube, Chief Executive Officer, traces the journey of the airline and what passengers can expect from it in the future. Edited excerpts.
How much of what was planned then has been achieved?
The underline vision was to create an airline that was something that India had never seen; that which provided world class operations and world-class experience.
You are talking about world-class but at that time you were restricted as you could only fly domestic?
It does not matter.. if you are flying one aircraft let that have operational reliability and safety standards… if you have two let those two have it. If 24, then let the 24 have the highest standards of operational reliability and world class safety.
You obviously had to tinker with what was planned as post 9/11 steel cutlery was banned on aircraft…
This was more tactical tinkering that everyone had to do; it did not change the ethos which started or drove the airline. Till today, if you look at our DNA, service and warmth are very fundamental to who we are. All the feedback that we get from our customers is that our flight attendants and our customer service agents stand apart. I do not mean stand apart in India but stand apart in terms of world service. I have had considerable background in global aviation and I will say that our service, warmth and hospitality is second to none.
But the other reality is that a major portion of the market is carved out by low-cost airlines.
That is not necessarily so because we do not have world-class service. For example, in your mind who do you think has world class service? The best of the best?
The carving out or taking of some share by LCCs does not mean that a particular airline, in my case Jet, does not have world class customer service. It just means that over time you have a price sensitive customer who may not value every aspect of customer service.
Can you explain this?
Take a Mercedes, BMW or high-end European cars and they say we provide high-end customer service, high-end performance and high-end luxury. You are going to say wait a minute, Maruti has a lot of share. Just because Maruti has share it does not mean that Maruti has the kind of high-end performance that some of the European car makers have. But that also does not mean that Maruti does not provide value for money… it does. It is just that different people value different things. You may have LCCs but that does not mean that the Indian consumer does not value the operational reliability, safety and customer experience that Jet has to offer.
How has that perception changed over time?
When you did not have LCCs, Jet was seen and was a pioneer in the game-change because it took what was at that time the existing competition and added a level of operational reliability which was not seen before at similar price points in customer service.
04/05/18 Ashwini Pahdnis/Anand Kalyanaraman
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How much of what was planned then has been achieved?
The underline vision was to create an airline that was something that India had never seen; that which provided world class operations and world-class experience.
You are talking about world-class but at that time you were restricted as you could only fly domestic?
It does not matter.. if you are flying one aircraft let that have operational reliability and safety standards… if you have two let those two have it. If 24, then let the 24 have the highest standards of operational reliability and world class safety.
You obviously had to tinker with what was planned as post 9/11 steel cutlery was banned on aircraft…
This was more tactical tinkering that everyone had to do; it did not change the ethos which started or drove the airline. Till today, if you look at our DNA, service and warmth are very fundamental to who we are. All the feedback that we get from our customers is that our flight attendants and our customer service agents stand apart. I do not mean stand apart in India but stand apart in terms of world service. I have had considerable background in global aviation and I will say that our service, warmth and hospitality is second to none.
But the other reality is that a major portion of the market is carved out by low-cost airlines.
That is not necessarily so because we do not have world-class service. For example, in your mind who do you think has world class service? The best of the best?
The carving out or taking of some share by LCCs does not mean that a particular airline, in my case Jet, does not have world class customer service. It just means that over time you have a price sensitive customer who may not value every aspect of customer service.
Can you explain this?
Take a Mercedes, BMW or high-end European cars and they say we provide high-end customer service, high-end performance and high-end luxury. You are going to say wait a minute, Maruti has a lot of share. Just because Maruti has share it does not mean that Maruti has the kind of high-end performance that some of the European car makers have. But that also does not mean that Maruti does not provide value for money… it does. It is just that different people value different things. You may have LCCs but that does not mean that the Indian consumer does not value the operational reliability, safety and customer experience that Jet has to offer.
How has that perception changed over time?
When you did not have LCCs, Jet was seen and was a pioneer in the game-change because it took what was at that time the existing competition and added a level of operational reliability which was not seen before at similar price points in customer service.
04/05/18 Ashwini Pahdnis/Anand Kalyanaraman
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