Last year, Lufthansa aired its first Indian television campaign with the slogan ‘More Indian than you think.’ This was the first time that the German airline had launched a localised ad. Wolfgang Will, Director, South Asia, Lufthansa, tells BusinessLine that the ad’s success has prompted the company to run the campaign again from August. Excerpts from a free-wheeling conversation.

It is close to a year that Lufthansa launched its television advertisement. What has the impact been?

We got a huge feedback. It touched the hearts of our Indian customers. The earlier ads were global ones that were adapted to the local market. But this was the first regional ad produced in India and for the Indian market. It will be shown again in August. The television advertisement will be in English and some other regional languages as it was last year. But this year the advertisement will also be shown in regional languages in cinema halls.

Has there been an increase in the number of bookings for Lufthansa?

Yes. But we do not share numbers. The timing was right because we launched it in July reaching out to customers who are not frequent travellers. We targeted travellers who travel once a year, or may be once every second year, and were not familiar with our products. And then in November we launched the Delhi-Frankfurt service with the Airbus A380. This meant we had an additional 140 seats daily. The aim was to approach new customer segments and then promote this aircraft and sell those additional seats.

Are you linking the increase in loads in the A380 from Delhi to the TV campaign?

It was a mix of marketing initiatives and sales efforts. But definitely the ad was an enabler. The head office is happy to see the impact, and also that the ad generated demand and revenues and now a lot of other markets are asking for it. The more you see and talk about the TV commercial, the more people think of Lufthansa when it comes to travelling abroad, especially to Europe and beyond to the US and Canada. At the moment we are also looking to deploy more of larger aircraft like the A-380 in India. We are looking if we can put another additional frequency on existing routes or increase our network in India by launching a new destination.

But you are capped by the number of seats you can operate.

Our bilateral (between Germany and India on air services) for Lufthansa has 24,000 seats a week. At the moment we are making use of 70 per cent of this.

Is it also governed by a cap on the number of flights that you can operate to an Indian city?

There is an overall figure and then sub-limitations saying up to (so many seats) in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune and other cities. Delhi and Mumbai are the most important ones. But we have some possibilities to increase in second-tier cities. For us that might be more interesting, rather than scaling up in Delhi or Mumbai.

For that you will have to renegotiate the air services agreement.

No. The bilateral is limited only to critical airports. When it comes to all the other airports the arms are open. Hyderabad is surely one of the destinations I have in mind.

What is the strategy? Pricing?

The idea is not to fill aircraft. That is the easiest thing. The idea is to get those passengers on board who really get you higher yields.

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