Jet Air bullish on enhancing ancillary revenues three-fold

Moneycontrol Bureau

At a time when Indian airlines are going through a financial crisis, market leader Jet Airways is planning to boost its ancillary revenues over three fold. This time around, the airline has tied up with Disney Channel's  'Jet Set Go' and will wrap a  Boeing 737--800 aircraft with popular Disney characters Mickey and Friends.

Though Manish, Dureja, vice-president, marketing at Jet Air did not reveal how much money the airline will earn by this initiative, he did say that the airline will aggressively pursue enhancing ancillary revenues. For airlines, ancillary revenue includes cash generated from food and beverages, merchandise and various forms of advertising and media.

This is the second time that the airline has painted its exteriors with an ad campaign. Earlier, it had an advertisement wrap of  Nokia Lumia 800, for for sometime. The branded plane flew Bombay-Hyderabad-Chennai-Port Blair and back in that order and at night flew to international destinations Abu Dhabi or Sharjah, depending on which route was free at the time.

The airline is very bullish on enhancing its ancillary revenues.  "Currently Jet earns around USD 3.5 per passenger by way of ancillary revenues and we will  be announcing many initiatives in times to come to boost it to around USD 10,"  said Dureja further adding that internationally, airlines earn around USD 20 per passenger.

What Dureja said holds ground because recently, the airline has announced that if a passengers books a seat Jet Airways and Jet Konnect flights through its website, the customer will have to pay a 'convenience fee' ranging from Rs 100 for domestic travel and Rs 200 for global travel per seat in the economy class and Rs 200 for domestic travel and Rs 400 for global travel per seat in the business class. Also, the charges are non-refundable and are applicable to every passenger even though the ticket might have been booked in a group, as in the case of a family.