Airlines spar over on-time performance

SpiceJet, Vistara make diffferent claims about punctuality, battle it out on social media

Twitter became the battleground last week for a sharp war of words between two airlines, SpiceJet and Vistara. For both - one a low-cost carrier clawing its way back from the brink and another, which recently launched a campaign to boost its premium status - it was not a matter to be taken lightly. At stake was the claim for the post of the best on-time airline and the two were contesting the numbers put out by civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

The DGCA publishes monthly data on Indian airlines. Amongst many other things, it maps the performance of the Indian carriers in terms of punctuality. In airline parlance, punctuality is measured as On-Time Performance (OTP) and it is this data for July 2016 that was contested by SpiceJet and Vistara.

SpiceJet published advertisements in newspapers and sent out media releases saying that it had clocked the best OTP performance among all major carriers with sizeable operations in four metros. An irked Vistara, the full service carrier owned jointly by Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, snapped back on social media.

The airline which markets itself as a premium carrier has always held up (flaunting even) its better-than-industry OTP record in its brand campaigns. Sanjiv Kapoor, chief strategy officer, Vistara took the first potshot on Twitter. "One way to claim to be No 1 by some: Have ads with fine print excluding actual #1. For the record again, Vistara was #1OTP in July," he wrote.

Ajay Jasra, corporate communication head at SpiceJet did not waste time. He retorted saying, "Airlines with single departure from Bangalore, Hyderabad claim to be in competition with SpiceJet for OTP."

As is the case with numbers, they were telling the story each airline wanted to tell. Vistara was right in calling out SpiceJet's claim as was SpiceJet in making it in the first place. Jasra was referring to Vistara's small size in comparison to SpiceJet which operated 298 daily flights in July and was thereby putting things in perspective. Subsequently, Vistara came out with an ad claiming to be the best in terms of OTP according to DGCA records. Kapoor called it the airline's way of "putting the record straight."

This kind of fight over OTP is not new to the Indian skies. Low cost airline IndiGo had made OTP performance a key brand differentiator in 2012, but is missing from the equation this time around, having established its brand in the market. For a long time, IndiGo touted its punctuality as one of its guarantees of a great flight experience; it had even taken a dig at the competition in a catchy advertisement (2012) that hinted that other domestic airlines fudged their on-time performance records.

The airline did not make a direct accusation, but the advertisement titled 'What the Fudge' made a distinction between IndiGo, which uses a technological tool to monitor its departure and arrivals, and others that rely on manual records. The underlying message was that IndiGo cannot tamper with records but others have the chance to do so.

IndiGo's positioning also helped build its brand around its on-time departures and steer the conversation away from flight fares. While airlines typically advertise low fares, discount offers or other such promotional schemes on their websites, Indigo, despite being a low cost carrier, emphasised on its OTP.

Steve Forte former CEO of Jet Airways says that OTP is very important for the image of an airline because passengers rate airlines on different points: Business travellers place OTP as the number one parameter over price, food service and others. This is perhaps why both low cost airlines and premium ones want to position themselves in this space. "As you can imagine business people want to get to their destination on schedule to pursue their interests of the day, such as meetings. OTP is also crucial to connecting passengers for obvious reasons," Forte says.

According to a senior executive of a low-cost carrier, in a cut-throat market like India, punctuality is something that the airlines build their brand around. "For an average Indian flier, rather than the amenities inside the aircraft, punctuality matters. He is not ready to shell out for comfort but will select an airline which he hears is disciplined," he says.

State-owned carrier Air India which is plagued by multiple operational problems suffers from a bad public image due to its dubious record on OTP. But, under current CMD Ashwani Lohani, the airline has been focusing closely on punctuality.

So seriously do airlines take the issue that many also play a dirty trick to clock better OTP. According to industry sources, airlines try to dress up the numbers by inflating block times. A block time records the time taken from aircraft push back (at the point of origin) to parking (at the bay at the destination point). A higher block time gives an airline the cushion to account for a delay. "DGCA does a cursory check of arrival and departure records from Mumbai, Delhi and a few other key airports, but takes data submitted by airlines on face value. Quite often airlines change their schedule for certain days without informing the DGCA. This allows for fudging of records," says an executive of an airline, not from SpiceJet or Vistara. Timing is everything in this business.