Edition 65
Last week, Air India returned to Kuala Lumpur. While it adds another spoke being built for the Delhi hub, two things stood out. First, the utilisation of the plane since it halts at night in Kuala Lumpur. I expected the airline to start another destination and swap planes in India. This may still happen in future. The second thing that stood out was the terminal. Air India is operating from KLIA 2, a terminal which is home to AirAsia, with which the Tata group had a low cost carrier in India and is now merging with Air India Express.
KLIA 2 has a chequered history. The terminal was opened in 2014 and replaced the LCCT which was located south of KLIA. AirAsia and MAHB – the operators have been in a tussle for long over KLIA 2 being a low cost terminal or not and the costs associated with operating from KLIA 2. In 2016, AirAsia started calling KLIA 2 as LCCT on its own as part of the tussle. Over a period of time KLIA 2 has been rebranded as KLIA Terminal 2 as MAHB tries to pitch two terminals as similar and grow traffic, especially when AirAsia has shrunk during COVID.
IndiGo, the only other Indian carrier to fly to Kuala Lumpur – interestingly operates from KLIA Terminal 1 where all the full service carriers operate from. We have a case where LCC operates to an FSC dominant carrier and a FSC operating to LCC dominating carrier. The reason? There could be many, from incentives to operate, lack of night parking, congestion at security or immigration, congestion in terminal and check-in counters. For IndiGo, which started operations from KLIA 2 and shifted to Terminal 1 later, it is more crucial to have the terminal because it has an impending codeshare with Malaysia Airlines. For Air India, it’s a standalone flight and it would be more bothered about connection time at Delhi for its passengers than the terminal in Kuala Lumpur.
Will it impact customer experience? It may. Will it create customer confusion? It may. Will it help the airline recover the costs faster? It most probably will and that is what will matter eventually to make the route work!
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