‘With curbs relaxing, it’s an opportunity to grow, expand further,’ says Vistara’s chief commercial officer

Tata Group and Singapore Airlines’ joint-venture airline Vistara, which launched its service to Paris this month, is awaiting further relaxation of restrictions as an opportunity to expand its footprint internationally, the airline’s chief commercial officer Vinod Kannan told The Indian Express in an interview. Kannan, who is set to become the airline’s chief executive January 1 onwards, also spoke about Vistara’s growth plans in the face of Tata Group acquiring Air India, and the importance of market share in the domestic segment particularly given the imminent entry of two new airlines. Edited excerpts:

Has Covid had an impact on flyer behaviour and is it expected to last?

First thing is in terms of how consumers buy or interact — when we restarted our flights on May 25, 2020, there was a mandate that everyone has to do a web check-in… That was a big change because at least for Vistara, I can say the proportion of web check-in was much lower before. This will continue for a while, probably forever, because people are used to this now. At the same time, people want to have more self-help… The second point is in terms of flying behaviour.

Pre-Covid, people used to fly on long-haul flights transiting via Middle East to go to Europe. And, while this may not be permanent, in the foreseeable future people may not want to transit in multiple points and would want to go direct from point A to B. Our international flights to London, Frankfurt and Paris have been subscribed pretty well and I think there is some truth to that as well.

Now that Covid is receding to some extent, is Vistara looking to get back to its growth plans?

Of course, we scaled back to an extent, compared to what we would have otherwise done because of Covid. On the other hand, if you look at it from the point of view of fleet size and routes and so on, ultimately, we have still grown, compared to where we were at the time of Covid. In the last 6 to 8 months, we have grown in size from 40 to 48 aircraft. The challenge has always been what is plausible in the face of various restrictions, especially on the international side because of factors such as bilateral arrangements, the second wave, various health measures being put in place. Looking at tomorrow, now that the limitations are being reviewed and restrictions are slowly being removed, it is an opportunity for us to grow and expand further and we will get there as soon as we have the opportunity to do so.

At a company level for Tata SIA Airlines Ltd (parent company of Vistara), is there a change in thought process now that Air India is to become a part of Tata Group?

At this time, we, as Vistara, have our own growth plans and our own business plans and strategies. And, at this time, we will continue to grow as per plan and the support of our shareholders. So, I don’t think it is right to speculate or comment on that, but, at this time, we are continuing to take delivery of aircraft and continuing to grow.

For Vistara, how important is the race to command a significant market share?

Market share is capacity driven. The market share that you get is going to be related to a certain extent to how many seats you deploy… Pre-Covid, we were 5-6 per cent, and it has increased to 8.7 per cent now. Market share is important but I cannot expect to have over 50 per cent share like IndiGo, with only 50 aircraft. But on the routes that matter to us, where the profile of the traveller matches our product proposition, we will try to make sure we are competitive and as close to the customer as possible to ensure that, on these routes, our market share remains significant.

Two airlines are coming up. One is an ultra low-cost carrier (Akasa) and the second is probably a full-service carrier (Jet Airways 2.0). Which one seems more threatening for Vistara?

We will have to compete with both of them. There is no running away. If you look at the Indian aviation market, almost 80 per cent of the market share is dominated by low-cost carriers. This has an implication on pricing and how we can position ourselves … the most important thing is what value we bring to the table.