When Indian aviation was introduced to the concept of unbundling, some of the airlines went berserk and wanted to charge for pre-blocking on any and every seat. The government caged them down to offering at best 25% of the seats on a plane, and middle seats could not be charged for pre-blocking, at all. Anyhow, under a new regulation that came into effect just a few days back, it turns out DGCA has allowed airlines to charge for all seats on the plane. The earlier regulation read as follows: Seat offered on opt-in charge basis shall not exceed 25% of the total seat configuration of the aircraft. Middle seats shall not be offered for preferential seating except for the seats…
unbundling
Tag Archives for unbundling.
Indigo stops charging for (most) window and aisle seats
A while ago, I wrote on this blog about how Indigo was inferring unbundling rules on their own tangent, offering upto 72% of the seats on the plane as pay for selection, which was not in spirit of the Indian regulations. They tried being creative earlier as well, even trying to charge for the middle seat. Basically, they were trying to charge for as many seats as possible to maximise revenue. Anyhow, after the post, I see things have changed. I recently booked my parents on another Indigo flight, and after booking up the trip, it was time to assign seats as well. Out here, I saw that the number of seats offered for premium seat assignment was way less…
Is Indigo offering 72% of their seats on pay for seat selection?
I travel Indigo on and off, and my airline-neutral parents don’t mind travelling on them since their choices are dictated by convenience of time and pricing. I must admit we haven’t given much business to Indigo this year. However, checking them in on a flight on Indigo now, I discovered some anomalies with the recently prescribed unbundling norms of the DGCA. The DGCA has clearly prescribed norms for charging for premium seats which they brought out in 2013. You can look at the PDF here. When they initially notified unbundling, Indigo would ask you for INR 200 for a window/aisle seat, INR 500 for a premium seat (Row 1,2,3, emergency exit), and Rs. 100 for all other seats to be…
Jet Airways begins to offer seat selection for a price
Unbundling has been around for a while, and all the Indian domestic aviation players jumped on the opportunity to monetize their seats. Jet Airways stayed away from this game for a while, only offering their Platinum Members the opportunity to select seats for free. However, earlier this week, they have started to offer a Seat Select feature to all their passengers on the domestic network. Initially, the pre-reservation of seats has been offered on the Boeing 737 network between the 6 key cities: Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Hyderabad. Pricing is at INR 500 for the bulkhead Window & Aisle seats, and INR 200 for the bulkhead Window & Aisle of the 5 rows behind the bulkhead. The good…
Air India won’t charge for seat selection
While all the carriers in India jumped on the opportunity to charge for seat selection to shore up their revenues, Air India seems to be opting out of the game, at least for domestic sectors. When fare unbundling was announced in India, all the carriers rushed to charge for seat selection. Indigo went ahead and wanted to charge you for every seat, including the middle seat. Then, the regulator realised its mistake, and limited the seats on a plane, which could be charged as special seats to 25% of the cabin. As per the news, this is their logic: The aviation regulator has directed that airlines can offer only up to 25% of seats for pre-booking. So at most, we…
Indigo implements middle seat ‘privilege’ charges, rolls it back
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…
Lounge Bites: May 05, 2013
I’m just trying to wriggle my way out of a bad bout of cold and flu which kept me out of action since 2-3 days. I figured a complete, medicinal recovery would be better than trying to drag my feet and keep up with work and other stuff, so I missed out some things. Here is a recap for you: Travel Agents across India seem to be off work on Tuesday 7th May 2013. So, if you depend on them, organise your business a day before or after. I am still refusing to believe this fully, but I am scared for flying Air India if this is true. Apparently on a Bangkok – Delhi flight, both the pilots went to…
How will unbundling work out for India?
I’m pretty sure the low-fare airlines in India are already set with product propositions as to how they will charge for the various propositions such as checked bags and sale of food in-flight. Like I wrote on Monday, the Indian aviation regulator did permit unbundling of fares, which included preferential seating, checked bags and other services, a full list available here. On a closer inspection, it does look like this stuff is at least a couple of months away, even if airlines start implementing systematic changes now. I would imagine a whole lot of this strategy will want to leverage on the internet to build in the services into the ticket, i.e., you buy it online to ensure that you…
India, welcome to unbundled fares!
The Indian Civil Aviation market is up for a change, since after years of disallowing unbundling of fares, the aviation regulator & minister have finally come around to allow this move, in line with global practices. As per the new regulations, notified earlier this evening, the aviation regulator has allowed the following services to be charged for separately: Preferential seating Meal/snack/drink charges (except drinking water) Charge for using Airlines’ lounges Check in baggage charges Sports equipment carriage Musical instrument carriage Fee for special declaration of valuable baggage The regulator expects that base prices of tickets will go down when various services will be unbundled, however, I do not expect this to be the case because airlines in India would rather…
