Fly away on Venga Airways....

Ok, Venga Boys haven't started their Venga Airways service in India yet. And I also don't know if it is a full service airline or the low cost variety. It is immaterial what type it is as long as it flies me cheap. Till a year ago, the only time I flew was Hyderabad-Chennai-Hyderabad on the Indian Airlines. Of course, that was a sponsored ticket. Otherwise, who would fork-out Rs. 16,000/- for a two way journey? Not me. I'd rather travel by train at Rs. 1,000/- max. That was four years ago. Fast forward to now, things have changed a lot. Better for travellers, worse for airliners, but who cares!.

After coming out with Apex, Super Apex, Super Duper Apex, Super Duper Fluper Apex fares, the regular airliners ran out of ideas. Then came a small-fledgling helicopter service provider who said that he'd fly us for the cost of only a high-end bus or a second AC train fare. It was difficult to digest this claim initially. That would be anywhere between one-fifth and one-eighth of the prevailing rates then. That airline, Air Deccan, still flies at almost the same price levels that it promised. In a candid interview (I can't recall with whom), Capt. G.R. Gopinath, its chief, said that their main goal was to fly from point A to point B for as cheap as possible and with a decent on time flight schedule. They do the first part of their job most of the time, but I doubt about the second. Wait a sec., I don't doubt it, I know they don't do it. It will be breaking news if an Air Deccan flight leaves on time. I've flown them 4 times now, and it was, you guessed it right, never on time. The closest it came was only a half hour delay. Only half an hour. Of course, my concern all these time was only to go from point A to point B. Reaching on time was not a crucial factor. If it was, I would never have entrusted Air Deccan with that. Even Capt. Gopinath admits that they've to improve a lot in that aspect. I completely agree. Not just me but everybody who have flown them. That will total up to one-fifth of all air travellers in the country during the last 12 months. Yep, they have a market share of over 22% and it is inching closer to 25% or a quarter. If airports in India are looking more and more like bus-stands and railway stations, you know whom to thank/blame. Remember, it is Air Deccan's mantra. i.e., Fly the common man. No wonder, they use the common man from R. K. Laxman's cartoon strip as their mascot.

Talking about the services and politeness of the staff, I am sure they are legendary by now. The less I write, the better it is (as they are the subject of another post). All I can say is, if you are looking for good customer service, you better don't travel by Air Deccan. Instead, fork out a few hundred rupees more and travel by SpiceJet or Go Air instead. I've flown both. It may be a little premature to say this, but for the fare I paid, they were quite impressive. Their schedule was almost on time (about 10 min. delay in each case). That's ok. I didn't even notice it till the Go Air captain owned and apologised for the delay, and didn't blame the Air Traffic Controller (Air Deccan's captain did) before taking-off. FYI only, he was not an Indian. Ok. Ok. Please don't send me hate mails when I mention that he was not an Indian.

Having said all the above stuff, I didn't mean to be mean to Air Deccan. It came out naturally. Ok. Ok. I'll stop it. One thing they need to be commended for is visualising a scenario where an aam aadmi (aur aurat bhi - don't call me a sexist now) could afford air travel. They have really worked hard (and continue to do that) to bring down their fares. They've shown that the low-cost model can work in India too. For how long, that is the question waiting to be answered. All the airliners in India (incl. the low-cost ones) continue to bleed. They generate revenue which is barely enough for their day-to-day operational expenses. If you have questions on their Leasing costs, financial costs, returns to share-holders, please don't ask them now. It would be adding salt to the injury. All of them say that fares have to go up for the industry to become sustainable. But none increases. They are not interested. Their main aim right now is to increase the size of the industry and bring air travel within the reach of ordinary citizen. Once they do that, they are gonna increase the fares slightly and experiment if there's any aversion to air travel because of that. Right now, except for Air Sahara, almost all of them have big bucks in their bank accounts to wage a fare war. Till the time they do that, you simply enjoy the ride.

YOU are the 'Time - Person of the year 2006'

Don't get confused....I am not talking about you but YOU. Alright, I'll make things a little easier to understand. The Time magazine thinks that it is not a single person that has changed the world but a lot of people did. Ordinary people with ordinary lives sharing ordinary stuff has produced an extra-ordinary combination that has redefined the way people communicate globally. It is all about what has now become a cliched term 'user-generated content', 'citizen reporting/marketing/blogging'. Be it in photo-sharing, blogging, video-sharing, social networking, or just about anything that constitutes the Internet 2.0. Armed with only an internet connection and some optional gadgets like digi-cam, camera-phone, people are transforming the world. So that makes me a recipient of this year's Person of the Year Award (if I can borrow Gaurav's words). I only hope they haven't noticed the time gap between posts on this blog.

Courtesy: Gaurav Sabnis, Sadagopan