The Hindu Business Line : Low-cost Air Deccan looking at hard cash

"The Re 1 and Rs 99 tickets will be used more for penetrating the virgin routes and to build up the demand. But we want to see how much more we can get from the top end of the market," Air Deccan's Chief Revenue Officer, Mr Samyukth Sridharan, told Business Line.

Hence, it is tweaking the customer profile to woo the big corporates as well as the small and medium enterprises aggressively.

"But whatever we do, we will see that our basic business model remains the same," says Mr Sridharan and adds: "For example, we will not offer hot meals to the corporates."

"The entire play will be a mix of value and product services," says Mr Sridharan who has been given the hard task of striking a fine balance between sticking to the basic model but at the same time squeezing out as much as profits as possible from the model.

Pointing out that the target is to make the airline profitable in the next 12 months, Mr Sridharan said that as of now the top as well as middle level executives constitute between 10 per cent and 12 per cent of the total number of passengers which is a mere one-fourth or one-fifth of the total number of passengers of a full service airline.

Corporate passengers

Air Deccan now wants to double that percentage. It is looking at ways where Air Deccan tickets are on a travel agent's platform and for the small & medium enterprises segment, it is planning to introduce coupons, which can be bought in bulk. It also wants to offer tele check-ins for corporate passengers as well as string together better schedules and timings so that company executives can pick up an early Air Deccan flight and return the same day.

Rationalisation plan

The airline has already reintroduced the Rs 150-congestion charge and now wants to rationalise certain routes as well but will desist from rescheduling the induction of new aircraft into the fleet.

It is also identifying routes in which both Air Deccan as well as Kingfisher Airlines compete with each other.

Last month, Kingfisher Airlines' parent, UB Holdings, bought a 26 per cent stake in Deccan Aviation, which runs Air Deccan.

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