Airline Wars - An Illustrated Explanation

For the past few days I have been witness to a gargantuan war between the different airlines in India. I have been thoroughly entertained by the antics of everyone from Captain Gopinath of Air Deccan to liquor producer and swimsuit calendar maker par excellence Dr.Vijay Mallya.

Poor Naresh Goyal of Jet Airways in the meanwhile is still regretting his decision to purchase Sahara airlines from Subrata Roy. I specifically told him not to do it simply because dealing with a conglomerate consisting of Amar Singh, Mulayam Singh, Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Ambani and the Lucknow High Court is extremely difficult.

While driving to the BSE every day I have been witness to the airlines trying to out–advertise each other. This is because the cost cutting measures have not been working. Even the obligatory smile from the Air-Hostess has become low cost in low cost airlines, economy class in the economy class and high class in the high class airlines.

For my journal I have been taking snaps of these advertising hoardings with my obscenely expensive Canon DRFSXCUYT 6785400987WERT54231 Camera With Super Smart Image Focus ™(Patent Pending).I plan to use these images in future seminars where I will teach aspiring morons from the IIM or IIT or even the Government Veterinary Colleges about smart marketing.

The first snap is an indicator of how people will buy an airline ticket based on the advertising campaign alone. By putting out this hoarding Naresh Goyal sold more tickets just by convincing people that he had brought about a big change when in fact all he had done was change the uniforms of his pilots and cabin crew.

The second snap is an indicator that the prospect of sexy air hostesses will sell anything. It also helps if you get free liquor. Perhaps the coolest part of this campaign is the fact that even though you own a recently formed airline company that is still trying to recover its investment you can still pass it off as a major contender to Jet Airways if your name is Vijay Mallya.

The third snap is an indicator that you can get your brand noticed simply by stating an obvious fact though the advertising campaign fails to explain how the CEO of the airline can be Preity Zinta’s boyfriend and not use her in the campaign while BSNL can make loads of cash by using her.

The fourth is an indicator of India’s growth fueled by the government. A true social and economic yardstick. A very smart way by which a certain Lalu Yadav can say ‘I never got a management degree, I simply cut costs and outsourced services but I made a big deal about it. Something all of you have been doing for so long but couldn’t do when it came to your airline companies. You guys are indeed dumbasses and the railway records prove that I’ve kicked all your asses combined.’

Poor Siddhanta Sharma of Spicejet was unable to add his own hoarding because he was busy resigning.

The last one is a part of ingenuity thought up by the officials of a government transport service implying simply that the other guys needn’t have gone through any of this trouble. In India a sub standard road service can continue to remain sub standard and make money without doing anything.

It’s no wonder I’m dumping my stocks in the airline sector because they are not the BEST.