GoAir mulls tie-up with Rlys for connectivity

Passengers of low-cost carrier GoAir might soon be able to book a railway ticket for Delhi-Agra on the company's website, when they get themselves booked for a Mumbai-Delhi flight.

The carrier is mulling a tie-up with the Indian Railways to provide connectivity for various important places close to destinations in their network, where they do not play.

"We are definitely planning a multi-modal connectivity to certain places apart from destinations we operate. Though we are primarily looking at railways, we might also look at other means of transport such as roads," said Edgardo Badiali, CEO, GoAir to Business Standard.

When a passenger books his ticket on the GoAir website, he will also have an option to book a railway ticket for a place of his/her interest close to the destination at the same time. The offer might also be given through a tie-up with a travel portal.

"There are several places which will attract a crowd but starting a flight to those places will not be viable due to infrastructure and other problems. So we would provide the connectivity without actually flying to those places immediately. This will give us the additional feeder traffic without actually bearing the costs of any extra flight. Also, we might charge a slight commission on the railway tickets," said Badiali.

The offer of air and rail travel would mean a benefit of 30-40 per cent for a customer compared with an all air travel. While a return ticket for Delhi-Madurai would cost Rs 12,250, a flight from Delhi-Chennai and travelling by train to Madurai would cost Rs 8,800. Similarly, flying from Mumbai-Delhi and then going to Agra by train would cost Rs 6,525, whereas a flight ticket could cost Rs 8,500.

While GoAir has a limited network primarily covering the 4 metros and 2 other cities, this would give them an option to touch other places such as Agra and Meerut from Delhi; Pune, Nasik and Nagpur from Mumbai; and Tirupati, Pondicherry and Tirupati among others.

GoAir is also planning to launch its loyalty and frequent flyer programmas for customers in this summer.

"Rather than awarding additional miles to the frequent flyer, we will give them value-added services such as hotel bookings and so on. The awarded points could be given not only on the basis of the number of flights but also on the basis of duration of the flights," said a company source.

The loyalty programmas would be the first by any other low-cost airline, which is understood to be in the final stages of discussions.

As part from its other services, the carrier is planning a fee-based preferential check-in wherein a passenger can pay an additional fee and get faster check-in.

Also by paying an additional amount of Rs 25, a passenger can also choose his seat in the aircraft. GoAir is in talks with car rental companies to offer passenger pick-up/drop facility.