Air India deploys low-fare, large aircraft tactic to boost occupancy
09 May 2011
New Delhi: Air India has decided to persist with its practice of deploying large capacity, twin-aisle aircraft on domestic and short-haul international routes. It was forced to adopt this tactic in the wake of a strike by pilots on its domestic routes in a desperate bid to lift large number of stranded passengers.
Air India may deploy 290-seat Airbus 330 jets on metro routes like Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Chennai or Delhi-Bangalore-Chennai. As an added attraction passengers will be able to fly these aircraft, which are used only on international routes, at extremely competitive fares.
The carrier has also decided to deploy these jets on short-haul international routes to destinations like Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Dubai. The bigger planes would be deployed in the morning and at night, as breakfast and dinner flights, in place of the 140-160 seat Airbus A319, A320 and A321 family planes.
These changes will be made by adjusting two narrow-body flights with a single wide-body flight.
A senior airline official said AI offered 35,000 seats daily on its domestic network as well as short haul international destinations. With the new tactic of deploying wide-body aircraft on these routes, the number of daily flights may come down somewhat but the seats on offer would remain the same.
The new schedule is expected to be worked out within a week with the carrier coming back to normalcy after the ten day long strike.
AI is offering much lower fares than anybody else in a bid to improve its occupancy rates.
.webp)
