| Jet Airways among India’s top airlines, is setting | | | | Ashwini Kakkar, vice chairman of the Oberoi group |
| out to woo leisure travellers. In a bid to make up for | | | | affiliate Mercury Travels. |
| reduced occupancies arising out of a cutback in | | | | For the latest quarter ended December 2008, the |
| discretionary expenditure, including travel and | | | | company posted a standalone operating loss of Rs |
| entertainment by companies, Jet plans to target | | | | 84.06 crore and a net loss of Rs 214.18 crore. The |
| leisure travellers to make up a third of its passenger | | | | airline has been desperate to boost domestic |
| base. | | | | passenger numbers as its revenues from International |
| “Global experience shows us that a significant | | | | operations, which earn a lower operating profit, |
| portion of economy class passengers tend to be | | | | exceeded the higher margin domestic revenues in the |
| leisure travellers. As Indian carriers, we have been | | | | quarter ended December 2008. While international |
| catering largely to corporate travelers and the visiting | | | | operations grossed revenues of Rs 1,618.07 crore |
| friends and relatives category of the Indian diaspora. | | | | they earned an operating profit of Rs 618.62 crore. |
| We need to diversify to target the growing middle | | | | Over the same quarter ended December 2008, the |
| class so that the leisure segment contributes as much | | | | domestic operations had revenues of only Rs 1,290.8 |
| as 30 per cent of our business mix,” said | | | | crore but higher operating profits of Rs 722.79 crore. |
| Sudheer Raghavan, chief commercial officer, Jet | | | | Data released by the directorate general of civil |
| Airways Konnect (India). The company, which in the | | | | aviation show that Jet Airways and JetLite together |
| October-December 2008 quarter, lost as much as | | | | carried 7.96 lakh passengers in April 2009 vs 8.61 lakh |
| Rs 2.32 crore per day, has been trying hard to fill its | | | | for Kingfisher a much later entrant into the aviation |
| planes, to boost revenues at a time when full service | | | | business. Boosting this share of traffic from India is |
| airlines seem to be losing the battle to budget | | | | crucial for Jet to reestablish itself as India’s |
| carriers. | | | | numero uno airline, say experts. As per Ministry of |
| The company recently launched its cut-price service | | | | Civil Aviation data the market share of the |
| Konnect, which services smaller cities where JetLite | | | | Jet-JetLite combine was 24.1 per cent as compared |
| does not fly to. “Full service carriers are | | | | to the Mallya backed Kingfisher’s 26 per cent, in |
| operating at an average passenger load factor of 60 | | | | April 2009. |
| per cent while carriers such as Paramount and Indigo | | | | “We aim to convert many of our over 2 million |
| are nudging closer to 80 per cent. The difference | | | | Jet Privilege Miles members to use Jet for their |
| between a PLF of 60 per cent and 80 per cent could | | | | leisure travel as well as their official work. To do this |
| mean the difference between huge losses and | | | | we are reinventing our position as a premium airline |
| healthy profits as the cost side of the equation | | | | rather than an airline just for corporate travelers |
| remains the same regardless of which of the two | | | | that’s restricted to one narrow market |
| occupancies you are running the flight with,” says | | | | segment,” said Raghavan. |