A new Air about India

The skies above India are opening up to a renewed era. A resurgence of the romance related to flying. We are now coming full circle. The Sixties and the Seventies were devoted to positioning commercial flights as comfortable and even luxurious palace s in the sky, with all the attendant frills of smart men and women pampering you with good food and drink in an ambience specially created to make moving from point A to point B a pleasurable experience. This was when the wide-bodied jets were still relatively new and flying abroad, at least for Indians, was very much a novelty.

Things changed, as they always do. The novelty of flying was beginning to wear thin. More people began to fly, and airlines hurried to be all things to all people. Oil prices soared, superlative but ridiculously expensive showpieces such as the Concorde were mothballed and the world began to see air travel as just that — an effort to quickly bridge distances without too much of a fuss.

The new security concerns did nothing to make flying easier. Suddenly, even a nail-cutter or a metal fork in the dinner tray or more recently, even a bottle of whisky was seen as a security hazard. I’ve often wondered whether anyone could hijack a 747 with a fork brandished menacingly at a pilot. Or maybe they were worried we would get the cabin crew drunk with the innocuous Chivas bottle in our hand baggage.

Yet, frivolity apart, flying was becoming a pain. In India, Air India was born and nurtured as a star. Then the Government nationalized the airline and over the next couple of decades systematically succeeded in running it to the ground. No one had the guts to order new aircraft for Air India and Indian Airlines. The grungy old aircraft ran more to the whims and fancies of bureaucrats and politicians than to any flight schedule. Delays were endemic and service standards dipped.

The first rays of hope for these otherwise lost cases came with competition holding a mirror up to them. I believe Jet Airways single-handedly stung them into action. Yet it needed a young Praful Patel to take on the job of ordering new aircraft for both airlines to breathe the hope of salvation into these carriers. Suddenly, things seem to be happening. With the imminent arrival of a new fleet the two airlines were merged and again it needed a dynamic Praful Patel to throw his weight behind a transparent global pitch to appoint professionals to create a new identity for Air India.

DMA Branding, a division of the Aliagroup (an Indian company, thank you) was awarded the prestigious and rather daunting task of re-branding the airline. Much research later (probably to validate all we knew), DMA decided to make ‘A Tradition of Warmth’ as the positioning statement of Air India. The tagline ‘Fly Well’ followed. And so did a complete job of customizing everything about the aircraft including the seats which I am authoritatively told were actually designed by DMA. Ritu Beri gave the uniforms a new look and as the first Boeing 777 was being readied for delivery, someone got hold of pictures of the new livery and splashed it all over the media. A few ‘experts’ were also asked for their views and they promptly proceeded to trash it.

Frankly, I have always felt that you can never indulge in any great creative activity by means of a democratic process. People will have differing opinions on anything creative and they are entitled to their views. Any knee-jerk reaction to such views could only prove counter-productive. Personally, and I am entitled to my view, I loved the branding. It retained much of the original design but made it look very contemporary and stylish. Yet, by then the decision to merge Air India and Indian (which had by then dropped the Airlines from its name) was at an advanced stage so in what I would call a typically bureaucratic move, it was probably seen as important if not expedient to merge the logos of the two airlines and come up with some hybrid variant.

Well that’s exactly what they did and well, that’s what they got. A graphic swan with the Ashoka Chakra emblazoned on its tail. I liked the chakra in the Indian design. I loved the new centaur on the stillborn Air India design. I find the marriage of the logos has created a funny-looking child. Change the colour, knock off the high tail and I would swear it is the Saudia logo. Anyway, it’s a done deal, and if the product is good we will learn to live with, if not love, the logo.

And that brings us to the product. Any marriage brings with it a fair share of challenges. So does the marriage of Air India with Indian. Yet, they can and should be settled with the tools readily available to managers. One can almost hear the murmurs amongst the staff. The Indian staff obviously feel that their brand has a greater equity than that of the Air India brand which is really at the bottom of the international heap. Air India staff feel it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

The arrival of the new Boeing 777 gave Air India an opportunity of a lifetime to show itself off in its new colours and its new ‘avatar’. The decibel level it managed to achieve has been pretty impressive. The advertising has been sufficiently loud, even if it could have been classier. The positioning of the ‘non-stop’ aspect has been spot-on. More so, in the light of the formidable Jet Airways launch of its Newark service via Brussels. The editorial coverage garnered has been spectacular. The build-up has been great. And yet, early news reports of empty seats on the first several flights should not be dismissed lightly.

Advertising and public relations can only communicate the broad advantages of the new image. As in any marketing initiative, the prime effort should be to initiate trial. And then let word-of-mouth publicity do its job. Firstly, one has to overcome a backlog of bad buzz. I flew Air India business class to the US last year and experienced the downside that an old aircraft provides. This image can only be overcome by good buzz. And good buzz can only come from real passengers. Air India must realize that filling premium seats with upgrades to governmental freeloaders cannot help in the long run. Passengers still fondly speak about the warm service and great food on board Air India. The spanking new aircraft and a strict despatch regime could really do a world of good. But the airline needs to earn back the confidence of the discerning traveller. I believe Air India is poised precariously on the threshold of what could be a dramatic turnaround. Yet, it must understand that this second chance is also the last chance it has. History will never forgive it if it messes up. And what about its domestic operations? Well that’s another story. Think about it as you walk up to an Air India counter (all branding will point you to it) and be told you have to go to an Indian counter at the other end of the terminal. Bon voyage!

(Ramesh Narayan is a communications consultant.)