Business travellers opting for low-cost carriers

Low-cost carriers (LCCs) have a reason to rejoice. Over 35 per cent of Indian business travellers are shifting their loyalties from full service carriers. Cashing in on the situation, the low-cost carriers are planning to introduce a special customised corporate package to woo this segment.

Reliance Industries, Infosys, Wipro, ADAG, Mahindra & Mahindra, ICICI Bank, Jubilant Organosys and Ranbaxy are just a few of the companies who have moved to the low-cost carriers.

"LCCs are making the travel budget of corporate houses cheaper by 30 per cent. Middle-level management and operational level executives are now preferring LCCs. On-time performance and their wide network are prompting frequent flyers to shift to LCCs," said Warwick Brady, Chief Operating Officer of Air Deccan.

For example, if a large corporate house is flying 500 times a month on the Mumbai-Delhi route in full service carriers, it can save at least Rs 60 lakh a year by shifting to low-costcarriers.

Brady said Air Deccan is offering at least Rs 2,000 less than what the full service carriers were offering.

Aviation analysts pointed out that the frequent flyers of small and medium enterprises were also shifting towards low-costcarriers. "We have about 10,000 corporate houses as our members. Now we will come out with a corporate product in the next two weeks," Chief Revenue Officer John Kuruvilla said.

SpiceJet Vice President (Marketing & Planning) Sanjay Kumar said, "According to a SpiceJet survey, 45 per cent of SpiceJet travellers are business travellers. Over 35 per cent of business travellers have shifted to LCCs. We are pitching in more corporate houses with our existing corporate product."

"Lower fares and increasing reliability are key factors in determining shift of frequent flyers. GoAir has devised a customised corporate package that will suits to travel requirements. We are planning a corporate package in a couple of months," GoAir Chief Commercial Officer Raj Halve.

Brady said Air Deccan, which was running 250 flights a day, was planning to increase the Mumbai-Delhi flights to five a day from current four. We will also add one more flight to the current two Mumbai-Bangalore flights a day. Delhi-Bangalore will be three flights a day shortly from two flights a day," Brady added.However, full service carriers are unfazed.

"Passengers may shift for cheaper fare for select occasions. But the phenomenon of miles collecting and redeeming will bring them back to us," said a senior Jet Airways executive.

Jet Airways has a member base of over half a million as frequent flyers.