Jet Airways: Will Jet connect?

POWER MOVES

On May 7, Jet Airways introduced Jet Konnect, an all-economy service which will fly on short routes. Sector experts expect Jet to introduce more than 50 such weekly flights, priced almost at par with low-cost carriers. In reaction, Kingfisher, Jet’s arch rival, has also shifted around 25 weekly flights to its low-cost arm, Kingfisher Red. Industry sources say the reason why Jet has come out with a new low-cost service even though it has a low-cost subsidiary, JetLite (earlier Air Sahara), could be the legal battle between Jet and Sahara over the payment of dues. Jet had acquired Air Sahara for Rs 1,450 crore in 2007.

Still others say the idea this time is to give low fares under the premium Jet brand as opposed to JetLite which never managed to take off. While a customer aboard Jet Konnect does not get frills like food, he does get the service of the Jet Airways staff — from cabin crew to ground-handling staff.

Everybody agrees that this is an attempt by Jet to win back corporate travelers who, thanks to the economic slowdown, have shifted to low-cost carriers like IndiGo and SpiceJet in a big way. So much so, the share of low-cost carriers in the corporate travel market has risen from 10 per cent to 35 per cent in the last one year.

“Full service carriers cannot decrease their prices to the level of low-cost carriers. Hence, the strategy is to either introduce an all-economy brand or shift flights to the low-cost arm. We are expecting healthy sales on Jet Konnect,” says Bhawna Aggarwal, co-founder of travel portal Yatra.com.