Better Than The Hotels: India's Growing Airlines

Freshly back from a trip to Banaglore, I posted my opinions on India's hotels. I have also now sampled a full array of the local airlines and am posting my results here.


Jet Airways: High Class, High Cost, An Unsustainable Model?

Jet Airways is the success story of India's new aviation sector, doing a land-office business domestically and expanding into the vacuum created by Air India's horrendous service and decrepit planes overseas. They fly modern Boeing jets domestically and Airbus wide-bodies overseas.

The service is "high touch" and modeled on Singapore Airlines. Meals on even short domestic flights including hot towels and a first class section. The airline has a frequent flyer program and offers services such as online check-in. Expatriates will be most comfortable flying Jet Airways and I would predict that they will be the first to join one of the global alliances, probably Star.

The downside of Jet Airways: their operating model may be too complex to be sustainable. Flight times within India are probably not long enough to sustain a hub and spoke model and catering an aircraft can really slow down a quick-turn. Additionally, as the market matures, they may find that there is limited demand for first class seats on flights under 3 hours.

Next Post: Kingfisher Airlines