Did you know that the first Indian to have an airplane is the young Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh? In fact he is considered by many, in 1910, to be one of the first Asians to fly. Since then the evolution of Airlines have been rapid in India, starting with JRD Tata being awarded the first Indian Pilot license for flying his Gypsy Moth.
Aviation in India didn’t take a large part of the travel till around the 1950’s when we had the Indian Government stepping in and publicizing and consolidating many individual players to jet start Indian Aviation. Thus began Indian Airlines and their operations on 1st August 1953.
Currently today though the market share is dominated by private players in the market. Private airlines hold 60 percent of the market share. It was aided with allowing private carriers to allow air taxi operations. But what is the real reason behind people preferring this to the Government run operations? In my opinion, I would cite two main factors.
The first would be the inventive ways of Airlines competing and offering better fares and privileges to the user, thus allowing for a wider choice and an affordable one. The second would be the defunct operational services of the Government. While they spend a lot of money in acquiring newer airplane jets they haven’t concentrated their efforts on the flying experience. Slack attitudes at expansions and service are primary reasons why the domestic market is weaning from government carriers.
People want good, affordable and comfortable travel. And they are ready to pay a price for it. Wouldn’t the largest backed up airlines actually want to leverage that to gain share? All is not lost, I think the new aviation minister is aggressive enough, but there is a long way to go. My quick 3 tips to help them on their way?
a) Improve service of ground stuff, the customer is your most important asset.
b) Improve your online booking facilities with the faster group of net savvy people, it is important that you should cater to their needs of by passing agents and booking online.
c) Fly more often and at cheaper rates through the most important business domestic routes. It helps to help people fly at convenient timings.
This really isn’t rocket science to cater to the customer first and make sure that their needs are important. Taking tips from the aggressive domestic players and using their large financial backing should help a lot!
iXiGO.com is India’s leading travel meta search engine that offers users the absolute cheapest rates they can get by aggregating from many websites. Their services include Flights, hotels and buses which were recently launched. With their clean interface they have redefined travel search to make it smarter, easier and faster.
Karthick Gopal, works with iXiGO as their content manager and is a frequent travel writer. He has an extensive experience in the travel industry and believes in the iXiGO spirit of providing the best services and making it fun to search!
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