For the first time in India and among all domestic airlines, Air India may not offer meal at all on some of its domestic flights, even if the passenger is willing to pay for that.

At the same time, the national carrier will take a call on charging more for some of the seats only when a clear regulation is in place.

“We are looking into providing no meal at all on some domestic flights, say those which are of less than an-hour’s duration,” a senior airline official told Business Line . Such a move, once implemented, will result in faster turnaround of an aircraft, cleaner aircraft and less weight on the flight, besides having an implication on revenue, he added.

The airline has already stopped serving hot meals (cold meals, such as sandwiches, are available) on flights less than 90 minutes, while passengers on long haul get hot and cold meals and beverages. With the new system in place, Air India will be the only domestic carrier with three categories of flights, on the basis of meal. At present, low-cost carriers such as Indigo, Spicejet, and GoAir offer meals on payment, while full-service carriers such as Air India and Jet provide complimentary meals on all their flights.

The proposed initiative is a part of the un-bundling policy announced by the Civil Aviation Ministry. The policy prescribes services for which airlines are free to charge. Accordingly, some airlines such as Indigo and GoAir have started charging for preferred seats. Although, Air India Express, the budget arm of Air India, did announce charging for preferred seats, it later withdrew the proposal.

The official said that any decision on charging for preferred seats will be taken only after a clear regulation, by the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation is in place. The regulator is working on new regulations which may prescribe 15 per cent of total seats on a flight to be put up in the preferred seat category.

These could include six seats each in the front seat and emergency exit rows (which offer extra legroom) Apart from this, window and aisle seats in rows between 2 and 5 may also attract preferred seat charge.Air India has already ruffled competition by reducing weight of free baggage allowance on Gulf routes to 30 kg from 40 kg earlier. “Within 24 hours of our cutting this allowance, Emirates increased it to 50 kg. But we are not reversing this,” the official quoted above said. The airline has already reduced weight of baggage allowance on domestic flights to 15 kg from 20 kg earlier.

Capacity addition

The national carrier intends to add 22 per cent in total capacity. “Most of these will come from international sector,” the official mentioned. The airline has already re-inducted 6 Dreamliners while 8 more are expected to join by December. It may be recalled that the airline re-launched commercial operation of the much-hyped Dreamliner on May 15 on selected domestic routes and while international operation started on May 22.

The airline will use eight Boeing 787 aircraft to launch services on the Delhi-Birmingham-Delhi and Delhi-Sydney-Melbourne-Delhi routes in August this year and the Delhi-Rome-Milan-Delhi route. These services will start in October.

> shishir.sinha@thehindu.co.in

( The correspondent’s trip to London was sponsored by Air India )

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