Originally Posted by
SQ421
Random thoughts on AI strategy or lack thereof
1.
Air India, started by JRD Tata in 1932, and acquired by the Government of India in 1953 has mainly operated on the premise of connecting pockets of Indian diaspora with India. In itself, that was a sound strategy in its early days, but has certainly left AI behind with the advent of super-hubs of DXB, AUH, SIN, BKK, HKG all around the 5 hour mark form most cities in India.
For someone flying from MAA/CCU/BLR/COK to say Europe or Far East, it is more convenient to change flights in DXB/SIN/BKK/HKG than spend 2-3 hours flying to DEL/BOM, run the gauntlet of transiting through airports that aren't the most transit friendly, and then carry on to their onward destination.
Limited connectivity at destinations certainly doesn't help either, when the carriers connecting through the aforementioned hubs have an option of delivering you much closer to your intended destination in your destination country, with a same one-stop journey.
Would you rather fly MAA-DEL-JFK-ORD or fly MAA-HKG-ORD ?
Why would you ever fly MAA-DEL-JFK-ORD when you could fly MAA-DEL-ORD?
But yes, the way they are building their international network makes little sense - on that front, 9W have done a much better job. When I made the original comments about strategy, I was focusing on the domestic market...
Originally Posted by
SQ421
2.
Transiting in India can be a royal pain in the proverbial. There, I said it.
I don't know anyone who disagrees with you... transiting in India is no fun. AI has actually done what I'd call an impressive job with the way they facilitate connections, especially at DEL, but the airports of India aren't built for connections, and that shows.
Originally Posted by
SQ421
Sure the new DEL airport gets good reviews, but transiting from International to Domestic (or vice versa) is not a welcome experience at the best of the times. Not many people want to deal with the chaotic experience of transferring between the domestic and international terminals (which are separate at BOM and DEL)
DEL T3 has fixed a lot of that... I avoid domestic-international connections at BOM like the plague though - it's truly a horrible experience.
Originally Posted by
SQ421
and would much rather connect outside the country and fly direct to their destination.
Agreed
Originally Posted by
SQ421
If you had to spend 4 hours in transit, would you rather spend them at BOM, or spend them at SIN/HKG/DXB where transit is infinitely more pleasurable, and fly directly to your destination?
I don't actually mind connecting at DEL T3 - it's a better experience than FRA/CDG, simply because it's less crowded.
Originally Posted by
SQ421
9W actually got this right to a great degree by using BRU as a scissor hub in Europe to connect its feeder flights from BOM/MAA/DEL to flights bound for JFK/EWR/YYZ
Agreed. This fantasy that the GoI seems to have about flying nonstop to far corners of the world just isn't profitable. I'd say that AI's route network was better off when they had mini-hubs in Europe.
Originally Posted by
SQ421
For a while now, AI has been toying with the idea of a direct flight to Melbourne, Australia (MEL). For the life of me I can not fathom what it stands to gain by having a once daily flight flying such a long, thin and seasonal route. The flight will be of next to no use to anyone who's flying from outside of MEL and who's destination is any place outside the DEL catchment area. But, AI wants to do it.
Again, a better way would be to emulate 9W and fly to one of the Asian hubs from multiple Indian airports and feed the passengers onto another that flies to Australia. 9W codeshares with QF between SIN and India and SIN and Australia, and QF's recent pullout form India altogether seems to indicate that the codeshare strategy is working fine for the market it wishes to serve.
Agreed - AI has a "partner" in SQ - perhaps they should try actually feeding each other
Originally Posted by
SQ421
These three are the big "strategy" points that come to mind, and would be great to dissect and fix. Then ofcourse there's the usual suspects of reliability, service recovery, irrops, and what have you.
I agree. If AI wants to turn around, there is no doubt that these will need to be fixed.