Edition 54
Last week was all about the Cricket World Cup and the retirements at its peak for some key players. The same week, I saw some instagram advertisements where key chains were sold made from metal of IndiGo A320 and Jet Airways ATR, a collectible for many aviation geeks.
As airlines renew fleet at breakneck speed in India, especially the older lot – IndiGo, Air India, Air India Express and Vistara merges with Air India, can the retirements go down in style – just like the world cup heroes? The tech logs which are mandatory, give the history of the plane which includes number of landings, total hours, where all did the plane fly in its lifetime and more. Often referred to as India’s National carrier – Emirates, the Dubai based airline has done this in the past. Simple things like its first commercial flight, last commercial flight, airports it visited and total number of flights are now available on a click, now that everything is digitised in almost all airlines.
So then what really stops the airline from creating a nice feeling around retirements of planes which have served it well for years? The answer has always eluded me. IndiGo in its early days was social media or media shy. It stuck to its quirky marketing and advertising. However, IndiGo has since changed and tries to celebrate every single thing.
Air India, on the other hand, has a very long legacy and the new owners are known to talk about its legacy as a group as well as the airline. Infact, legacy is one of the reasons why the group decided to buy the airline.
As Vistara, which has created its own niche, merges with Air India over the next few months – will it be the unique one which will come up with such things? A total count of flights it did as Vistara, the total passengers it flew, the total landings and take-offs per plane and airports they travelled to, before it becames Air India? The transfer of planes could start within weeks if not days and the time to act would well be now?
While the biggies ignore this, will it help gain traction with the regionals like Star Air or Fly91? Who knows if that gets people the feeling of belongingness especially at small towns where these airlines fly?
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