Discounts pushed Jet's traffic by 20%

Jet Airways says says cut in rates was one way of saying sorry, writes Mihir Mishra.

After massive cancellations of Jet Airways flights during the five-day strike last week, the private carrier has seen a surge in the number of passengers that it has flown in the last three days - thanks to an aggressive discount of up to 50 per cent on some tickets on all its flights.

Taking it on in the price game has been rival Air India, which also announced a drop of up to 48 per cent in its fares.  According to travel agents, Jet's passenger numbers shot up nearly 20 per cent compared with what it was before the strike.

During the strike, the numbers had fallen to as low as 7,000. As a result, according to industry experts, the company went deeper into the red by Rs 160 crore (Rs 1.6 billion)

A spokesperson said over 23,000 passengers used to fly with Jet on normal days. On September 14, a day after the strike ended, the number of passengers reached 19,000.

On Thursday, the figure was 28,000. The spokesperson pointed out that the motive behind the offer was to make amends with passengers as they had suffered a lot during the strike.

"A lot of our passengers got penalised as they had to switch to airlines which charged a premium. We wanted to make amends to them and the offer is one way of saying sorry," the spokesperson said.

Whatever the reason, travel agents say the move has worked.  "Jet Airways has seen an increase of over 20 per cent in ticket sales compared with the pre-strike period," Ajay Parkash, general secretary of the Travel Agents Federation of India, said.

Avers Rajji Rai, general secretary of the Travel Agents Association of India: "The discount offers have increased ticket sales by 20-40 per cent."

The drastic reduction in air tariffs has helped even Air India's traffic. According to sources in the national carrier, Air India booked 23,000 passengers daily during the days it offered a discount, compared with an average figure of 22,130 last month.

"Kingfisher and Air India are at almost the same level, but Jet airways may see a growth of around 25 per cent because of the offer," said Bhawna Agarwal, general manager of the online travel portal Yatra.com.

"We should be happy that we have been able to retain the number of passengers flying with us even after so much of discounts being offered in the market," an Air India official said.