In an effort to boost its revenue, Jet Airways is planning to enhance its ancillary business. Currently, the airline earns around $3.5 dollar a passenger. It plans to enhance this to $10.
Ancillary revenue is the term for non-ticket revenue tapped by airline companies worldwide that includes convenience fee, baggage fee, in-flight entertainment and sale and various forms of advertising and media.
“Since flexibility in increasing air fares is limited, our focus will be on ancillary revenues. At present ancillary revenue forms only three per cent of the total revenue for the airline,” said Mr Manish Dureja, Vice President-Marketing, Jet Airways. The airline has lined up a series of initiatives to tap this business, he added. However, he did not reveal how much revenue the airline would earn by this initiative. The ancillary revenue generated in 2011 by all airlines across the globe was $33.5 billion with an earning of around $20 a passenger in this segment. In a bid to grow its ancillary business, Jet Airways announced it had tied up with Disney Channel India for its ‘Jet Set Go’ campaign and would wrap a Boeing 737-800 aircraft with images of Disney’s Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and other Disney characters. As part of the campaign, 37 families from India were selected for an all-expense paid trip to Hong Kong Disneyland Resort.
This is the second time that the airline has painted its exteriors with an advertising campaign. Earlier, for sometime it had played host to an advertisement wrap of Nokia Lumia 800.
Without going into much detail, Mr Dureja said that the airline was planning more such joint initiatives to tap the ancillary revenue business. Recently, Jet Airways also announced a “convenience fee” for passengers booking tickets in Jet Airways and Jet Konnect flights through its Web site. The non refundable charge ranges between Rs 100 and Rs 200 a seat for international travel in economy class, and at Rs 200-400 for business class.