Earlier in the month, when unbundling was notified by law for Indian airlines to be able to charge for services, I wrote a blog post which mentioned how I expected it would work out. One of the statements I made was:
a) Preferential Seating: I am looking at you Indigo, and I am thinking, you will try to sell almost all window and aisle seats as preferential seats maybe. Because you’re so money minded.
However, in my wildest dreams, I had not thought that imagination at Indigo would run so wild as to charging for assignment of a middle-seat on the plane as a preferred/privileged seat as well. In doing so, they were not charging for preferred seating, which was what the government notified, but for the privilege of choosing your seat before everyone else does. Way out of line from what the intentions of the government were meant to be.
This move, kind of got the nerve of the government who started making noises about regulating the unbundling bit (something they were supposed to do anyways!). Uh oh, and now quietly, without as much as a whimper, Indigo has withdrawn that middle seat charge. As of today, their latest Seat Plus offering looks like this:
The interesting bit to note here, you can now pre-assign yourself the middle seat, if you prefer.
I hope Indigo does not start to lose the respect of the flying public it worked so long to gain and get to be known for their nickeling and diming more than their on-time services.
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Posted by Live From A Lounge |
Tags: 6E, Indigo, unbundling
Unbundling airfares was expected to take off in a while, however the airlines are already set to go ahead and charge exotic varieties of add-on charges on top of your ticketed price right away.
Indigo was one of the first to take off with the new charges, and will now charge an additional Rs. 200 if you want to pre-book a window or aisle seats on their planes. If you want a front row seat or an emergency exit, you should be ready to fork out another Rs. 500 for this privilege. They’ve fondly called this Seat Plus. If you intend to pre-assign a non-premium seat, just pay Rs. 100. This is working out exactly as I predicted on May 1.
Like you see, for an international segment, the charges go up to Rs. 300 for a window/aisle and Rs. 800 for a premium seat. For any other seat, it would be just Rs. 200. However, if you turned up at the airport and these seats are going vacant, you could switch to them for free.
Air India has been working on cutting out the free baggage allowance for customers. It used to have the most generous free baggage allowance of 25 Kgs per customer in Y, which was reduced to 20 Kgs a few years back. And now, a customer on an AI domestic flight can only carry 15 kgs of free baggage, while excess baggage will be charged at Rs. 250/kg. In case you have your Air India Flying Returns number on your ticket, you can still carry 20 kgs without any problems.
With Jet Airways, they are starting to charge for advance seat reservation, albeit only on a single route right now (of Mangalore – Dubai & v.v.). I am not sure if they are test-marketing at the moment or there are other issues w.r.t. rolling this out.
So the party was good while it lasted. Now, get ready to be nickeled & dimed at every step of the way going forward.
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Posted by Live From A Lounge |
Tags: 6E, 9W, AI, Air India, Indigo, Jet Airways
I’ve liked the Indigo brand from the word go, including their IATA identifier 6E, their look and feel and their tongue in cheek approach to everything including in-flight catering, crew to their advertising. Most of all, their on-time performance and the tight-ship approach which they follow to ensure a professional experience on every flight.
However, it looks like of late the customer-centric approach is being taken over by some amount of arrogance. I’ve met passengers in the past few months who’ve complained of service without a smile, and non-responsiveness from the airline when things don’t go right. I’ve personally faced this issue with them, since they are the only airline who don’t seem to be interested in refunding customers the excess airport fee they collected a few months ago. A couple of emails sent to them, but no response!
However, they’ve taken arrogance to a whole new level at the moment, popping fun at competitors using various media including inflight magazines and hoardings. Past few days, on the airport, you’ll find these tents and adverts floating around thanks to Indigo.
Now, a lot of inferences are going around, but the most discussed one is that these references are all to be made about the now-dead Kingfisher Airlines.
In their in-flight magazine, they take a stab at Jet Konnect/Jet Lite as well, have a look here:
Admittedly, they’ve taken it a bit too far I suppose. Unless they thought they are Virgin with Richard Branson on hand who could use his charisma to get away with anything including this at the launch of Virgin Red last week.
Image courtesy: MSN
Your views? Am I taking this too seriously or is it okay for Indigo to get away with doing all of this and branding a competitor to Rest In Peace? Arrogance in, downfall begins is my belief.
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Tags: 6E, Indigo
