IndiGoStretch – When aloo tikki becomes a Gupta burger

Even for the aspirational, business class would mean at least that “champagne aur kaju milta hai." As a proud Indian and someone who’s run and managed airlines, it’s both condescending and toeing the line of being disrespectful to the Indian traveller to try and pass off a mere ‘seat’ with gimmicky addons as a magnum-opus, numero-uno premium product, because it’s not.

Where’s the champagne?

Business-class service as a standard is etched in the brain of every Indian and we know what it is. And we might end up teaching you a trick or two about it.

Business class or first class was perfected in India even before Singapore was born, with Air India offering the finest champagnes, lobster thermidor, and steaming hot idlis and dhoklas cooked in the galley, over three perfected rounds of service.

Jet Airways took the business class product up several notches in the 2000s (and stole Kingfisher’s market) by bringing on board ‘made-to-order’ breakfasts, paranthas served on exquisite Rosenthal porcelain and silverware; and a perfectly curated lunch and dinner service that extended to almost four rounds of service on board its 777 aircraft.

Also Read: Low-cost IndiGo's business class foray signals K-shaped growth here to stay

The award-winning Jet Airways service went several notches higher when popcorn machines were installed in the galley that kicked in with perfect timing while you watched a movie and filled the cabin with that sweet-savoury aroma of corn we all love. The popcorn stunt actually reduced the need for a service round and not only was it a crowd puller, it also lowered catering costs and aircraft uplift weight.

IndiGoStretch is not a premium product. At best, it should be termed a “budget-elite" or “budget-plus" product. Adding a reclinable, wider seat with a better seat pitch and palming it off as a ‘Premium Wow product’ isn’t fooling anyone.

The competition knows

Today’s flyer knows the airline to fly for business class and is more than aware of the quality of service that one expects, at the very least: express check in, at leisure boarding, priority disembarking, a well-appointed lounge, valet service, extra baggage, limousine pick-up and drop service, high-speed on-board internet, a trained nurse cabin attendant to help with insulin injections, an exclusive concierge desk and a personal butler.

The flyer knows the competition that offers this service at its best. And the competition knows the flyer that needs this type of service offering and knows how to sell it to him at a shocking steal deal.

In short, I don’t think we’d see the likes of Deepika Padukone, Amir Khan, Kangana Ranaut, Virat Kohli or any of India’s A-listers make any dead heats to buy IndiGoStretch.

18 till I die?

IndiGo is the third-largest airline in the world by market capitalisation and fleet. It has seen 18 years of fighting price wars, competition and harsh rivalry.

IndiGo’s watched Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines, Sahara and Vistara come and go and has been a bystander to superbly crafted first and business class products offered by Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, United and Lufthansa.

The reason IndiGo’s model worked is because it took no great rocket science to give travellers what they wanted: comfortable, safe, reliable, on time, clean seats and good on-board service at a price point that worked.

Also Read: IndiGo will always remain a low-cost airline: Rahul Bhatia

IndiGo at 18 years has enough learnings under its belt to know exactly what travellers want from a premium value-plus service and a good, long-haul product that should take on the market and build loyalty at a price point and take on some share from the market.

Premium or value-plus travellers don’t really want much today. All an airline needs to do is make the seats more comfortable, offer a better seat pitch and provide a reasonably decent inflight entertainment system that kills boredom on long flights.

IndiGo has traditionally always got it right because it knew what the budget traveller wanted. IndiGo is today a market-listed company with an actively traded stock.

It baffles one when a mature, “learnt enough to be an adult airline" tries to be someone it’s not and can’t ever be. The average Indian or Asian traveller knows why he chooses a low-cost airline ticket and is clear with the service offered.

By merely trying to disguise oneself as someone you’re not and trying to take on competition that can annihilate you with a premium product that’s been perfected is being reckless, irresponsible, risky and frivolous with hard-earned capital in a post-covid, high war-risk and unstable financial market world.

The sheer cost of setting up the new cabin configuration by now should give IndiGo stockholders, banks and lessors a cold sweat.

Be who you are! Period

This new IndiGo Strech product on its Airbus fleet increasingly seems to suggest that IndiGo has developed an inferiority complex and an identity crisis because of peer pressure. AKA an awkward 18-year-old trying hard to fit in with the gang with a pair of fake Gucci sunglasses.

Also Read: What's on the horizon for IndiGo after its best year yet?

Ryanair, Rouge-Air Canada, JetBlue, Southwest Airlines, EasyJet, Wizz Air, Air Asia and Scoot offer variants of a long-haul low-cost product, give the traveller what they want, and ensure that long-duration flights are a tad comfortable and not an ordeal.

IndiGo’s treading on thin ice with this new Stretch product. Aloo tikki is still loved by everyone, but aloo tikki doesn’t always need to become a ‘Gupta burger.’

Mark D Martin is CEO of Martin Consulting, an airline strategy and consulting firm based in Asia. Views expressed are personal and don’t necessarily represent the views of the firm.