Flying in the lap of luxury

International airlines zero in on upscale Indians.

If you fly first class or business class on Emirates, you'll notice a difference. Both now have a five-star ambience. In first class, on select routes, you'll have a cabin to yourself.

In both clases, you'll be served seven-course meals with the finest champagne and an extensive wine list. You'll also be able to see take-offs, landings and the scenery en route, thanks to external cameras. You'll find a personal satellite telephone in each seat, a seat-to-seat inflight telephone service and a central fax machine.

You'll also be chauffeur-driven in a limousine free of cost to and from some airports; be able to catch a flight from anywhere in the UK to a UK airport of departure free of cost (Emirates picks up the tab), and offered a mobile phone without paying any rent for 28 days, on arrival at Heathrow or Gatwick airports.

Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? But Emirates is not the only airline that's suddenly focusing on the Indian first class passenger. Others like Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa and British Airways are furiously trying or have upgraded their first and business class services.

That's quite a departure from the past when international airlines looked to India for mass market passengers. Fly Lufthansa from June 9 from New Delhi to Munich, for example, and you'll discover in first and business class an ergonomically designed seat that stretches out into a 2 metre flat bed, the longest in commercial civil aviation, the airline claims.

The seat was developed at a cost of around 300 million euros. Its new business class has about 25 per cent greater circulation space.

"India is now our focus market for our first and business class sky products more than our economy class," confirms Abdulla Naseer Abdulla Hussain, Emirates' vice-president for India and Nepal.

The rush to snare the upscale flyer is prompted by the booming demand for first and business class seats.

"The demand for both first class and business class seats is growing in overall proportion to a steady increase in demand year-on-year of about 6-8 per cent with regard to flights between India and Europe," notes a senior Lufthansa executive.

Explains BK Ong, general manager, India, "As India becomes more pro-business, there has been a significant growth in corporate traffic to other countries. More and more passengers from India are travelling first and business class."

Predictably, airlines have tried to cash in by jacking up first and business class airfares from India. According to the American Express airfare index, first and business class fares increased by 15 per cent and 12.1, respectively, in the first quarter of calendar year 2004, compared with the first quarter of 2003.

In contrast, full economy and discount economy fares increased only by 5.6 per cent. Says a British Airways executive, "In August 2003, along with other airlines, we increased our first and Club World fares by approximately 30 per cent."

Interestingly, airlines that haven't upgraded business and first class are said to be losing upscale passengers to Emirates and others, though some airlines hotly contest this. Many of them will clearly be forced to follow suit or lose this dogfight that has erupted over the upscale passenger.