New Menus at Center of Air India Turnaround

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Regional cuisine and new beverages designed to bring customers back to Air India.

After a number of performance and personnel snags, Air India hopes to win over luxury flyers by introducing new menu items in the premium cabins. The Economic Times reports that the Indian carrier will begin introducing regionally-inspired meals, international wines and other beverages to the first-class and business-class cabins.

“We will first implement this plan for business and first class passengers on our international flights,” explains Air India spokesperson Dhananjay Kumar to The Economic Times. “Later on, we plan to introduce mocktails and regional cuisine on domestic flights.”

The new international offerings will be showcased at a gala event in September 2017, prior to implementation in time for the winter travel season. The complete menu and beverage pairings have not yet been finalized. As part of the plan, the airline will retrain chefs located in 28 countries who have reportedly “lost their Indian touch.”

Although the menu refresh is in line with other carriers’ strategies, the reasons behind the launch could have more to do with winning back high-spending flyers. According to a source inside Air India speaking to The Economic Times anonymously, the plan is driven by an edict directly from the nation’s civil aviation industry to “spend more to fill the aircraft.”

The strategy is one of many Air India is attempting in order to bring back passengers. In 2017 alone, the airline has introduced “female-only seating” on domestic flights and fines for disruptive passengers in order to increase their market shares beyond the 15 percent domestic and 20 percent international they current hold.

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