They have taken to no-frills airlines not just for economic reasons, but also for the convenience of better schedules and network.
BANGALORE: If you find Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Wipro chief Azim Premji, or Infosys head NR Narayana Murthy’s wife Sudha sitting next to you on your friendly low-cost carrier, don’t be surprised.
These high-flyers have taken to no-frills airlines not just for economic reasons, but also for the convenience of better schedules and network.
It was not long ago that top executives would give budget airlines a miss, but now things have changed. Ramesh Emani, product engineering services head of Wipro Technologies, for instance, swears by the budget carrier SpiceJet.
“If an executive is travelling short distance then he travels economy,” Emani said. “For long distance (overseas travel), it is mostly business class. And today, the service of SpiceJet is comparable to (that of) any full service carrier.”
TTK Prestige Limited chairman TT Jagannathan does not think twice before booking tickets on Air Deccan whenever he is travelling to Dehradun or Coimbatore. On the Pune route, he invariably hops on a SpiceJet flight. “Many times it is because of better schedule and connectivity,” Jagannathan said.
As a policy, executives in Jagannathan’s company do not travel business class.
Dictates from company heads asking executives to compulsorily travel by budget carriers are also boosting traffic on these airlines.
“Raymond chairman Gautam Singhania once told me that he has given directions in his company that executives should travel on our airline,” Air Deccan managing director GR Gopinath said.
As more and more companies patronise budget carriers, the percentage of corporate travellers on these airlines has shot up from a mere 10-15 to over 30. But first-time flyers still constitute the largest chunk of their travellers at over 40 per cent. On the other hand, full service airlines earn over 70 per cent of their revenues from corporate travellers.
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