IMO, the airlines today are really down to 'nickel and dime' (chindi-chor in eq. bollywoodspeak) syndrome that seems to have afflicted the US domestic carriers.

There is some merit in the argument that promotion of ridiculous fares and schemes like 1Re or 99Re has lead to a sudden interest and thereby, surge in traffic numbers.

But airlines will have to find other ways of managing revenue/yields. One option could be the use of widebodies and reduce frequencies on key routes-(my debut post) but it seems people are interested in frequencies as well. I think the market is still in a bit of a churn and maybe it will be a couple of years atleast before trends of any signifance can be obtained.

In the meanwhile, the bean counters are trying to plug the small cracks while leaving gaping holes elsewhere.( like paying huge salaries to expat pilots and expanding into new routes almost every other day).

And now here is a question-if the airlines expect pax to pay for congestion as a regular charge, pax should be able to request compensation for all kinds of reasons!! This is not going to work in the long run.

SSB

 

The airlines should be free to charge whatever fare they wish to. All the components of the fare must be added up and displayed as fare payble. Nothing should be hidden from the customer.

By all means, have all the surcharges and taxes but display the total sum on the website so that the customer knows exactly what is to be paid and does not get a shock after completing the process.

 

 Aseem agreed that airplanes are more of a public transport. But then with Indian Govt which has gone for complete deregulation of civil aviation sector, calling various private airlines as a public transport is hard to digest sheer because  of profitability.

 Though none of Pvt operaters have been in black this fiscal or last fiscal but the ultimate aim is of maximising profits while public transport is always operated for the benifit of the consumers and the society with no profit to be reported in balance sheets or an agreed amount of profit.

 If any of us have read a bit of transport planning and economics we would know that adding capacity is the worst possible solution which a planner can suggest to curb congestion because the moment extra capacity is created it acts as a bait to airline operaters to moot extra flights where demand is not an issue

I had done  research on airport noise ie noise emitted by planes landing and taking off frm airports. Though noise is not an issue in India at present congestion has become a problem. Airport congestion then simply make airport slots as valuable assets. If the airport authorities introduce dynamic slot pricing this wud also help in mitigating congestion during the peak hour and thr traffic can be spread during the day.

We wud have to give a fiver to the airbus and boeings marketing dept who have been able to sell their single aisle family aircrafts so much successfully. Each time when we open newspapers we read news about the  future demand of aircrafts though no one talks about how these figures can be trimmed to so much low levels if widebody jets are deployed.

Hence whatever congestion is happening in the skies its the airlines who are partly to be blamed along with the goverment. They could have rather gone for competetive tendering on the differents routes rather than full scale deregulation

One misconception that i can find here is about wide bodies and the frequencies of flights.

Routes to places of tourist interest like GOI can have wide bodies deployed instead of more frequencies. But on routes like BOM-DEL or DEL-MAA or BLR-MAA etc etc people who travel most of them are on business and official work. in such cases people prefer a larger number of frequencies. Thats because they have a better option like for eg a businessman takes the 8.30AM flight to DEL completes his work and return by around 7.30PM.

If here there was a shortage of frequencies like even if it was a B777 at a frequency of 3hr it would definately affect the person's schedule considering the fact that there was no flight at 8.30AM and 7.30PM.

One example is that BKK-Phuket route on which TG deployes a 747. This is solely because the majority people are for tourism and the airline will definately consider the majority. Now TG gets an advantage to use a wide body and reduce operation costs of rather than flying 2x 737s or for tha fact any narrow body.

now in routes like JFK-LAX many US Airlines use aircrafts like 757 or 767. this is because the load factor might be higher (dah!!! beat the statistics) and also for the fact the distance is too much it is definately economical to use a wide body.

QF on the other hand uses A330s in domestic routes too. Again reason being that QF being a big airline for a country like Australia with very less options other than Virgin Blue, Jet* etc. So QF can manage that.

Comments welcome

the_380 wrote:

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One misconception that i can find here is about wide bodies and the frequencies of flights.

Routes to places of tourist interest like GOI can have wide bodies deployed instead of more frequencies. But on routes like BOM-DEL or DEL-MAA or BLR-MAA etc etc people who travel most of them are on business and official work. in such cases people prefer a larger number of frequencies. Thats because they have a better option like for eg a businessman takes the 8.30AM flight to DEL completes his work and return by around 7.30PM.

If here there was a shortage of frequencies like even if it was a B777 at a frequency of 3hr it would definately affect the person's schedule considering the fact that there was no flight at 8.30AM and 7.30PM.

One example is that BKK-Phuket route on which TG deployes a 747. This is solely because the majority people are for tourism and the airline will definately consider the majority. Now TG gets an advantage to use a wide body and reduce operation costs of rather than flying 2x 737s or for tha fact any narrow body.

now in routes like JFK-LAX many US Airlines use aircrafts like 757 or 767. this is because the load factor might be higher (dah!!! beat the statistics) and also for the fact the distance is too much it is definately economical to use a wide body.

QF on the other hand uses A330s in domestic routes too. Again reason being that QF being a big airline for a country like Australia with very less options other than Virgin Blue, Jet* etc. So QF can manage that.

Comments welcome

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Some comments/questions on the above

The JFK/LAX routes may not suit an appropriate comparison. These routes (nonstops) are dominated by DL,UA and AA using 757s/767s , and they earn most of their income by charging super-premium on the F/J classes. These are true businessmen flights. None of the Indian routes have such features (in terms of distance and pax categories).

I think the models that suit India for closer comparison are the Australian domestic or Japan domestic sectors.

I have a feeling here that the India metro sector market may eventually resemble the Japan domestic sector, where two Very Large carriers (JAL and ANA) dominate the Tokyo-Osaka-Nagoya routes, with special high-density widebody planes.

On a related but slightly offkey note, I bet the small LCCs like GoAir, IndiGo etc must be quite quite worried about holding on to the meagre market share.

These airlines are so similar to each other in product features ,how will they be able to compete DN which has a bigger market spread ?

 

 

I have no idea about Japan...

but as far as LCCs are concerned... they are quite new into the market...9W,S2 and IC have been playing for quite some time.

LCCs will need some time to grow... but i feel only the ones which are good will survive...

my list here includes 9W, SG and G8... (IC and AI are immortal unless govt murders them)

The only part that is left is to have a conductor on board, who collects the fare as per the delay

I wonder if airlines will return money if the flight lands on time without any delay.

the_380 wrote:

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One example is that BKK-Phuket route on which TG deployes a 747. This is solely because the majority people are for tourism and the airline will definately consider the majority. Now TG gets an advantage to use a wide body and reduce operation costs of rather than flying 2x 737s or for tha fact any narrow body.

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Bad example, every man and his dog with a urge to shag at the lowest cost is on that flt. Phuket as the name suggest is the worlds PHUKET KA PHATKA you only pay to get there. The only other place to use a B747 on a similar sector is JAPAN where the revenue (tik price is high for a comparitive mode of transport) is comparitively very high.

IMHO the airlines in INDIA have kicked a sleeping dog, the Indian psyche is to hammer the upperDog ( is this word in the dict ?), the media and subsequently the politicians will take this up. Except for DN every other airline in INDIA is owned by a self confessed prince or Brat, expect the fireworks in the press soon as the media co end up paying higher fares this Q. Probably this could be one of the ploys of the newly formed Airlines CEO Forum to shift the Onus onto the GOI.

-- Edited by tayara mechanici at 22:34, 2006-12-06

Raise the Aeronautical Charges during peak hrs to the Metros, let the market forces pay the fares..........see the pax move back to Trains for the overnight journey on the Rajdhani Exp and consequent easing of congestion, Not.

The only solution is to allow all the airlines to fly Intl. They will route their aircrafts to DEL/BOM/MAA/BLR from the non-Metros and off to a 2-3hr Intl Leg for a return back in the afternoon. Most flts to ME are avg 3hrs from DEL/BOM and other W-India Cities. The same to SE-ASIA from MAA/BLR and the E-Indian cities. Right now quite evidently all the airlines are deploying their capacity onto the trunk routes in the abscence sufficient routes to sustain the aircraft acquisition. Bear in mind most of the airlines have on an avg a 7yr lease contract for the a/c they started ops with, and canot return it early without attracting huge penalties. Add to this the avg 4-5 a/c joining the fleet of  Dom Indian Airlines every month. Now every aircraft that is idle is flogged onto the Metros throughout the day consequently lowering fares to ridiculous levels and blocking the skies over these 2 Metros.  The option of flying to DXB, AUH, DOH, SHJ, BAH, MCT, Al-Ain, BKK, KUL, Johar Bahru, Tehran, SIN, Phuket will create inumerable number of city pairs between the Metros/Non-Metros and these cities in ME & SE-ASIA. I don't see the point in airlines from these countries mounting WB  flts to over a dozen Indian cities without AI/IA exploiting the same potential. AI / IA can deploy their new eqpt to create a market in China with P2P from the Indian Metros, in addition to their existing network to these dest. The anti-competitive rather shackling law of graduating to Intl flying after 5yrs of Domestic service is absolutely absurd especially in light of all the issues affecting the Indian Aviation.  More P2P to the ME from various Indian cities will mount a good challenge to the airlines from ME. I am sure there will be a straight 25% - 40% drop in flts between DEL-BOM vv. Praful doen't have to search hard for inspiration. Following 9/11 and the subsequent shakeout in the USA dom market most of the majors started deploying their excess eqpt onto Med-long haul Intl routes to S-America and EU, consequently creating new Long thin P2P. One rule will clear most of the problems facing aviation in India.  

With a stagger you'll see plenty of flts move through these Intl hubs throughout the day, consequently feeding into IC/AI/9W/KF intl services as well as increasing the parking utilisation in the non-metros. With better connectivity between non-metros and DEL/BOM/MAA/BLR, businesses will be attracted to move to the economical less costly and socially sane non-metros to open shop. Further boosting the growth of these cities. Especially ITES and Tech co will be encouraged towards these cities with reputed educational institutes.

Example:-

Daily 2 dep 1 each to DEL/BOM/BLR/MAA before 6am from Raipur/Bhubneshwar/Vishakpatnam/Baroda/Coimbatore/NGP/GOI with onward Intl connections will unclog the skies and create better connectivity, revenue, yield, a/c utilisation & profits..............and they all lived happily ever after.

-- Edited by tayara mechanici at 03:09, 2006-12-07