There has been an uptick in the number of business class passengers carried by Jet Airways and Air India (domestic) on their domestic flights in recent times. Frequent fliers on Kingfisher have noticed a similar trend. So are domestic airlines seeing a turnaround in their fortunes?
“The number of passengers being flown in business class in the domestic skies is growing. When we compare July over June, we see an increase in the number of passengers carried in business class. But it is still too early to say that a recovery is taking place,” said Mr Sudheer Raghavan, Chief Commercial Officer, Jet Airways.
Air India (domestic) too has seen an increase in domestic business class travel which in some sectors is almost 50 per cent higher than what was being flown earlier, senior airline officials said.
“On the long haul domestic sectors such as Delhi-Chennai, Delhi-Coimbatore and Delhi-Bangalore, there has been an increase in the number of passengers flying in business class during the past few weeks,” an airline official said.
The increase in business class travellers is being attributed to several schemes such as ‘Spouse flies free’ and the ongoing ‘Monsoon magic’ promotion by the airline which offers a business class ticket for as low as Rs 9,500, sources indicated.
Jet Airways, which in a shift of focus to all-economy class low cost sub-brand Jet Konnect, had reduced its business class seats by 25 per cent in July. However, the airline has seen a 10 per cent increase in the number of passengers flying in business class on its full service brand Jet Airways.
Airline officials say that increase in business class passengers will have a positive impact on the bottomline. Jet primarily uses the Boeing 737 aircraft to operate domestic flights.
It has 48 such aircraft in which the business class seats vary from 16 of the 112 seats offered on the Boeing 737-700 to 24 of the 144 seats offered on the Boeing 737-800.
The airline also operates the Boeing 737-900 aircraft which has 28 of the 160 seats in the business class.
Air India’s domestic operations are largely carried out on the Airbus A-320 family with the Airbus A-320 having 24 business class seats out of the total capacity of 144.
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