Jet Airways fires another salvo in air war

10 August 1999

Jet Airways has tied-up with leading hotels to announce discounts ranging from 20 per cent to 50 per cent on room rates at over 30 locations for its passengers flying by economy or business class.

The hotels which have tied up with Jet Airways to offer the discounts are the Taj group of hotels in important locations all over India, the WelcomGroup of Hotels in Bangalore, Ooty, Chennai and Hyderabad, Hotel Hindustan International at Calcutta, Le Meridien in New Delhi and Hotel Pride in Pune.

In addition to the discounts, passengers are entitled to a lucky draw and a chance to win a free return ticket on Jet Airways together with a two-nights free stay at the hotel offering the discounts.

This offer by Jet marks an escalation of the marketing war initiated by Sahara Airlines earlier this year. Sahara started it all by initiating fare discounts and free overnight stays at hotels on its routes, including the busy Mumbai-Delhi.

Initially, Indian Airlines and Jet Airways resisted the discounts and reacted by increasing the daily number of flights on the Mumbai-Delhi route. However, it was not very long before they capitulated on the discounts, with the result that the fare on this route has dropped to about the lowest in recent years.

Representatives of the three airlines now say that it seems unlikely that the fare discounts will be discontinued on 15 August, as had been announced by the three airlines earlier.