A regional airline without call centre; FLY91 remains 'digital native'

After taking to the skies nearly seven months ago, FLY91 is on a steady flight path and that too with a difference. The regional carrier does not have a call centre for passengers.

Focused on being a "digital native" company, the Goa-based carrier prepared a list of priorities before commencing operations and decided to do away with certain things that are traditionally done by the airlines.

"We consciously wanted to go down that path (of not having a call centre)...," FLY91's Chief Technology Officer Prasanna Subramaniam said.

There are huge cost savings with not having the call centre and it also gives the advantage as the savings are being used for building new digital applications somewhere else, he told PTI in a recent interview.

Currently, FLY91, which commenced flying on March 18, operates two ATR 72-600 aircraft. It has around 16 departures a day.

The airline has a fully automated bot that responds to customer queries. In case a customer wants to have a personal talk, then he or she can leave the number on the bot and the airline will call the customer concerned.

To a query on whether FLY91 is the only airline in the country that does not have a call centre, he replied in the affirmative and also added that regulations do not mandatorily require airlines to have a call centre.

Call centre is one of the touch points for passengers with airlines.

"On the call centre aspect we had a brainstorming discussion. We looked at multiple airlines and every airline has a call centre. We also looked at some great companies that do not have a call centre. We had spent sometime studying them... (some) do not have call centres today per se but if you have an issue, they will call you," he said, adding that efforts are on to reduce the issues faced by passengers.

When FLY91 considered the systems that were to be put in place, Subramaniam said one of the decision-making parameters was to be a "digital native airline".

"We should disrupt the industry with digital solutions and we did not want to do anything just because it was traditionally being done," he noted.

The airline is expected to induct its third aircraft this month and aims to have six planes in its fleet by the end of March 2025.

As part of expanding its presence, the carrier is also having discussions for partnerships with foreign carriers wherein it can serve as a last mile connector.

"We are not competitors to anyone... we are the last mile connector. We want to happily coexist with other airlines, domestic or international," he added.

Among other destinations, FLY91 flies to Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Lakshadweep.