Should airlines be wary of the emerging threat from Vande Bharat trains?

Will the aggressive launch of Vande Bharat trains to connect different cities - generally a non-metro city with a metro city - pose a threat to airlines on short sectors?

When I visited Ahmedabad from Mumbai in August last year, I considered flying as the only travel option, like most other travellers. Four months later, when I visit Ahmedabad again, I had another option of taking a train, which I had never considered earlier. This paradigm shift was a consequence of the introduction of the Vande Bharat train on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route a few weeks earlier. Even though as a person who had spent a considerable part of my life working for an airline, I may have been less tempted to choose the train as an option than most others but I did after considering the advantages.

How many will begin to think likewise is a question that has crossed my mind multiple times since then. Will airlines face a threat from an unexpected quarter that they had never visualised? Will the aggressive launch of Vande Bharat trains by the Indian Railways to connect different cities - generally a non-metro city with a metro city - pose a threat to airlines on short sectors?

In the pre-Vande Bharat train era those who could afford air travel, never considered train journeys as an option because of the several negatives attached to it - untidy stations, delayed departures and the uncertainty that surrounded the arrival of trains at their destination besides safety.

Convenient option

Ever since the Indian Railways began focussing on the negatives and launched Vande Bharat trains, it has certainly become an option for those travelling to destinations 3-5 hours away. The smugness of “I don’t travel by train” is being gradually replaced with why opt to fly when you have a convenient Vande Bharat train between two cities? Bio-vacuum toilets have ensured that the toilets are cleaner than before.

The two cardinal factors for determining the mode of travel have generally been the fare and the all-inclusive travel time - not just the flying time. On both counts, Vande Bharat trains are beginning to steal a march over air travel not just because the fare is indubitably much lower but the total end-to-end journey time is also narrowing.

Flying has its own requirements, much of it forced on it due to terminal congestion and the security environment. This includes reporting at the airport a minimum of one hour prior to departure, going through the process of check-in and security drill which involves taking off belt and jacket, emptying pockets, taking out a laptop from the bag, and then awaiting the departure. By no stretch of the imagination can this security requirement at the airport be described as a hassle-free experience. On arrival, one has to undergo an almost similar drill that involves awaiting the step ladder if the aerobridge is either not available or the aircraft is parked in a remote location, a short bus trip to the terminal building, collecting baggage and then making the onward journey to the destination.

Considering that cities have generally grown around main railway stations, travel time is not only shorter and less expensive and there’s no requirement to reach an hour earlier. One can reach even 10 minutes prior to departure of the train without the risk of being denied boarding, and there is no elaborate screening and checking-in of baggage. On arriving at the destination station, one simply alights from the train with bags and walks out for onward travel.

Comfortable journey

While airlines make passengers switch off their laptops/phones as they interfere with air navigation signals, on a train, they can use the wifi to go online and work. An air traveller invariably forks out more if the ticket is bought closer to the travel date but there is no surge pricing for fares on Vande Bharat trains, which is another advantage if travel is undertaken at short notice.

For those flying low-cost airlines, the seats are comparable on the train. There is also a facility to opt for food served on trains. Since the Indian Railways are on a spree of launching Vande Bharat trains with alarming regularity - 11 have already been launched and three more are due for launch shortly connecting Kolkata with Puri, Patna and Ranchi - the airlines may find it difficult to ignore the loss of passengers to the Railways on short sectors. Each train can ferry over 1,100 passengers, which is equivalent to almost eight short-haul flights at full capacity.

It just isn’t the originating and destination points that pose a problem. Vande Bharat trains have a few intermittent halts at the main cities en route. While an air traveller may not choose to opt for train travel from Delhi to Bhopal because of the seven and a half hours travel time, there is no stopping a passenger from opting to travel on this train from Delhi to Gwalior (3.20 hours) or between Gwalior and Bhopal (4 hours). Likewise, on other trains; Mumbai-Baroda on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad train; Mumbai-Pune (less than 3 hours) on the Mumbai-Solapur Vande Bharat train. For the more discerning, Vande Bharat trains have the executive class. The fares in most cases are lower than the economy fare on a low-cost airline.

While the Vande Bharat trains may not have created waves to rapidly change the perception of train travel, the airlines do need to take note of the expanding network of Vande Bharat trains. I may be sounding the alarm a trifle too soon but the threat of losing passengers to trains looks imminent for airlines in the not-so-distant future on short-sector flights.

Jitender Bhargava, former executive director, Air India & author of The Descent of Air India. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.