‘We want to transform the perception of travel’

As Vistara’s operations turns a year-old, its Chief Executive Officer Phee Teik Yeoh tells Ashwini Phadnis about the learning, creating a niche and the tweaks in the airline’s business model. Edited excerpts:

Have you made any tweaks from the time you launched?

One of our innovations was in our menu, idli chaat . Idli in cold chaat . Idli is a local fare but we tried to infuse a new twist to the way we prepare it. Initially when we launched, we got a thumbs up from most economy class passengers. They liked the experimentation.

But what we did not quite get right was that the business class passenger wanted the traditional sambar and chutney . Less than six months later, we turned the menu on its head. It was very painful because we had spent almost 16 months to set it up.

Having ticketing offices at the airports that we operate in is another tweak.

Initially we decided to have offices in Delhi and may be Mumbai. Then we noted that the sales collected from the ticketing offices were immense and that justified the costs of setting up offices at the airports. Now we have ticketing offices at every airport. We changed our remuneration scheme for travel agents. We sweetened it more; we widened our distribution as well.

But Vistara has a limited number of daily flights, as compared to its competitors. Why should a passenger pick the airline?

Scale is important but is not everything. Till the arrival of Vistara the market was dominated by price-led behaviour; everything revolved around price. Two-third, if not close to 70-75 per cent, of the travellers were experiencing a low-cost carrier product, which offered predictable service.

Although we have a less than 2 per cent market share, there are well-heeled discerning travellers who are prepared to pay a little premium for the value of service, in terms of comfort, exclusivity and the surprise element.

We are here to transform the perception of travel. It is not a robotic manufacturing plant whereby what you see is what you get, or what you pay is what you get. We continue to delight and surprise our passengers. That is our service philosophy. We want to be pre-emptive.

Despite having just one daily flight on some routes we keep seeing repeat passengers. That debunks the myth that scale is everything. I offer only one choice departure from Delhi to Bengaluru at 6.45 am. Time and time again the same traveller picks our 6.45 am-flight.

What is in store for Vistara flyers in 2016?

We are satisfied with what we have achieved in this short span. But the next year is going to be even more breathtaking. It is going to be even faster-paced in terms of what we are going to roll out. You will see a number of significant products and services that further transform the perception of Indian travellers on flying. Let me clue you in.

You would have read about our plans to introduce state of the art Wi-Fi. This will further transform the experience of passengers.

Another one is the lounge in Delhi at T3. We want it to be a place for people to network socially and professionally. It will be open only to members. Business class passengers will be invited but we are looking at how to make it accessible to others, not necessarily free.

We want to try and change the perception of travellers in India on what they can do at the airport, on what they can do before they catch a flight with Vistara.

COMMENT NOW