The Hindu Business Line : Price war seen as Jet begins Chennai-Singapore night flight

Chennai, May 28 Jet Airways has changed the schedule of its Chennai-Singapore flight from 11 am to 1.15 am. This is good news for passengers, not only because it brings in one more flight at a more convenient time, but also because there is a likelihood of a price war and a consequent drop in fares.

From June 5, Jet will be the third airline to offer a flight that departs Chennai around midnight and reaches Singapore in the morning.

Alongside, Jet has changed the aircraft it operates on this leg, from the 220-seater Airbus 330-200 to Boeing 737-800, which has around 130 seats. This means that the airline has dropped about 100 seats.

Jet does not wish to give an indication of the load factor on the Singapore flights — sources termed it “seasonal and difficult to tell” — but those in travel agencies say that Jet was having a problem in filling the seats on a big aircraft on a day flight.

Passengers prefer a night flight because a day flight eats away an entire day. Indeed, Jet was finding it difficult to get the more remunerative business class seats, for which businessman would want a day gone just in travel?

Sources in Jet Airways say that the airline would have liked to put a smaller aircraft into a night departure slot, but it did not have an aircraft for that time. Now, Jet has taken delivery of one A-330 and is operating long hauls. The machine that is now pressed into service for the Chennai-Singapore flight is expected to be released for long-hauls.

With augmentation of fleet, Jet has now found an aircraft that could be deployed on a around-midnight flight. Should there be a pick-up in the demand, Jet could always deploy a bigger aircraft into service, source said.

Singapore Airlines, Indian and Jet are the three airlines that operate full-service flights to Singapore. There are other low cost airlines — Air India Express and Tiger Airways. The two-way fares on the full-service carriers are around Rs 15,000, but some see a drop in the fares.

“We will fight it out. I definitely see a price-war,” says Mr Bharat Mahadevan, Manager, Southern India, Singapore Airlines.

However, sources in Indian do not share his view — they feel that there is a good demand for night flights and there will be business for everybody.

Jet dropping the number of seats on Chennai-Singapore has not come as a surprise to the industry because everybody knew there has been little growth in traffic lately.

Alternative destinations, such as Malaysia, Thailand and Mauritius and many packaged-tourism centres within India, compete with Singapore for leisure travellers. Indian, for example, has over 250 packages for domestic vacationers.

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