Edition 60
Olympics 2024 came to an end last Sunday. India’s Olympics outing this year wasn’t as great as the previous one. The 2020 Olympics (which were held in 2021) were the best yet for India with 7 medals, comprising 1 Gold, two silver and three bronze in individual category and a bronze in Hockey. This year, the Hockey team repeated its performance with a Bronze while the Gold medal was elusive. The medal tally stood at five bronze and a silver.
As the photos and videos of the Bronze medal winning Hockey team travelling back to India from Paris became viral, comparisons ranged from the BCCI chartering an airplane to bring back Indian cricketers stranded by a storm and cricketers travelling Business class versus the Hockey players in economy class.
The airlines have not announced any rewards yet. Last time around, IndiGo had announced one year of free travel to Neeraj Chopra, the gold medalist of 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The airline had not announced any rewards to any other medal winners. With none from India winning gold this year, the airline has not made any announcements for the medal winners.
Go Air (later Go FIRST) had announced one year of unlimited free travel for all individual medal winners after the Tokyo Olympics. The airline shut shop in May 2023 and is on the brink of insolvency after failed attempts to find buyers for the airline. The only carrier which had given unlimited free passes to all individual winners of Tokyo Olympics was Star Air which has grown in size since the last olympics, but has not made any announcements.
Aviation today is very different from what it was in 2021, in the middle of the pandemic. Aviation is booming, profitable for the largest carrier while turbulence remains for a few. Air India was a government airline in 2021, which today it is not. Nobody seems to have focused on this area this time around.
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