Vistara's turbulent takeoff in the cut throat Indian skies

Moneycontrol BureauNine months into the business, Vistara--a joint venture between the Tatas and Singapore Airlines--is already facing rough weather in the fiercely competitive Indian skies.At the time of its launch, Vistara had promised to shake up the market. Rather than be dragged into a never-ending fare war, the airline chose to position itself in the premium segment, and live up to its slogan of “Fly the new feeling”.Towards this end, Vistara came out with an exclusive ‘three class seat configuration’ — offering 36 Premium Economy Seats besides the usual Business Class and Economy Class. But looks like Vistara may have overestimated the Indian flier's desire for exclusivity. And this is why it has flown with more-than-expected---around 40 percent-- empty seats. “What did not turn out as planned was the load factor in the business class in the first few months,” Vistara’s chief executive officer Phee Teik Yeoh told Livemint.Vistara might have a recorded On Time Performance of 98.5 percent, but even that has failed to cut ice with fliers used to following the Indian Standard Time as according to networkthoughts.in, “Air Pegasus with just one aircraft based in Bengaluru recorded loads of 78 percent with flights to Hubli and Trivendrum in month of May,” says a report on the portal. With a load factor in lower 70 percentage as against SpiceJet’s mid-90s, Vistara continues to lag over 20 percent on a scale of domestic carriers' efficiency.Learning from its mistakes, the airline now is looking to reconfigure and align itself with the realities of the market in its seat pattern now and is doing almost everything to fly out of its way. From offering Odia dish exclusively to its Odia passengers to giving 2 percent commission to its agents, it has put its best to make-feel its dealers the ‘new feel’ of luxury and comfort of traveling. However, amidst all its teething problems, what comes as a respite is the falling crude prices. This, may for a while, re-fuel the airline's capacity to sustain the competition. In a much, much more, matured market, Vistara has, in its entirety, felt almost every trouble of a growing child and still has a long runway to cover before it actually takes off.(Posted by Raveena Singh)