Indian airlines, ground realities

What's wrong with the airline industry today in India? Once upon a time we had the best happening here. Now, it is a complete breakdown of service standards.

- Nalini P. Maiyya, Mumbai.

Nalini, I share your pain. I am a fellow traveller with you in this pain and I have seen it unfold, pain point by pain point.

India and its airline players have been through the ups and downs. Air India, the international player of old, was considered one of the best in the really old days. Apparently in the days you and I had yet to take to air travel. And today, we do see a significant difference.

In came the private players who dominated the skies as the aviation sector opened up in the Nineties. Brands such as Damania and Modiluft redefined the joy of flying altogether. The best standards were picked from across the globe and offered to the Indian traveller. Damania even went a step further and brought liquor into the India flying experience. I do remember early 6 a.m. breakfast flights having people demanding and getting their shots of breakfast whisky.

And then there was a rejig. The current dominant players that include Jet in its many avatars, Kingfisher and Spicejet and Indigo and more are the ones that have attempted all the changes. Changes that have redefined flying experience. Some good, some bad.

The key point is one of profitability. As every airline vies with one another to get those profit margins, there is indeed a cut in service and service standards. Many things have vanished. The candy on a tray, the cotton wool for all to take home in cute little packets, pens and headphones and even more.

While that is all fine, there seems to be no free lunch on an airline as well today. Many players in the low-cost space have done away with it altogether with obscenely priced in-flight menus that keep many a passenger hungry till landing. An empty stomach is really not a great start to building a positive brand.

Even if one can bear this, in total and true understanding of the cost-saving mindset that is necessary to run a good business, what is inexcusable is the quality of service offered by the ground staff. While the in-flight staff is still a well-trained and polite lot, the ground staff seem to be losing touch with the customer. A ruffled customer on the ground is not happy customer in the air for sure, never mind how good the in-flight experience is.

Even if one is to bear the on-ground experience as one that is all about cost savings again, what is crucial is the situation on flight delays and how it is handled. As low-cost flights delay and cancel flights at will, the “operational reasons” excuse is just not taken well by the passenger at large. And this is causing one more pain point that needs managing.

Nalini, there sure is a lot of pain. Blame it on better cost management practices. Blame it on the airline wanting to make better money as well. Better money to keep the airline flying to take care of your future flying needs. The airline is a service, but the airline is a business as well. Managing both these dimensions without trampling on the service requirements and standards of the passenger is the challenge at hand. Sadly, few are managing this well.

Comparisons are odious, but the Indian traveller is still getting better service and better everything at large than the guy in the UK and the US and most certainly in Europe, for sure. But I agree, Nalini, we must aspire to the best. At this point of time, this is a matter of worry and the airlines just don't seem to be bothered to listen.

In my company, there is a lot of emphasis on networking. I force myself to network, but don't really enjoy this. Is there a solution? And what is this networking all about?

- Rohit Ganapathi, Mumbai

Rohit, I really hope you don't get into trouble with your company for asking this question. But it is a good one. A real one.

Networking is what networking does. And networking is what networking becomes. A disease at times. A disease that robs us of our sincerity. A disease that robs us of who we really are, and something that at times makes us what we really don't want to be. Insincere beings.

The guy smiling at you in the post office queue is not a sincere human being. He is an Amway salesperson out on the prowl. Ouch!

The guy who gives you his card and gets back to you even before you have reached your hotel with a friendly e-mail is really not doing it just out of love for a fellow human being. Everything today in the space of networking is highly returns-oriented. The genuine feel and flavour of life is really at threat.

My take is a simple one. I worry as many of us are progressively traipsing the path of the frivolous and the insincere, as against the solid and the real. Many of us are really caught in the vortex of the insincere. Many of us really find ourselves in what I call the insincerity trap. A trap that makes you as unreal and hollow as society wants you to be.

Can we then attempt to throw networking out of the window, at least for a while? Take a networking break? Could we then interact and exchange calling cards only when we really want to? Not by force of habit. Not by force of the networking disease that wants us to harvest another soul onto my network.

And let's smile when we want to. Let's recognise people who we really know, come across all the while, never mind their value to our networks. Let's just get real. At least for a while? Rediscovering ourselves is really networking with ourselves first, before we attempt to network with others.

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