Jet Airways has launched an all-economy low fare service called Jet Airways Konnect on some routes. This initiative has been taken considering the falling load factors on its full service option on those routes.
Jet officials reiterated at a press conference here on Thursday that Konnect was not a new airline. In fact, it could even cease to exist once demand for the regular Jet Airways service increases and the issue of low load factors becomes irrelevant.
The on-ground and in-flight service will be dealt by the Jet Airways staff which will include their uniforms and the 9W flight code. Jet will use two Boeing 737-800s and six ATRs for Konnect, which will fly on 19 routes with 54 flights daily across 38 cities.
These routes include Chennai-Coimbatore, Chennai-Madurai, Chennai-Kochi, Mumbai-Ahmedabad, Mumbai-Bhopal, Mumbai-Udaipur, Bangalore-Pune and Bangalore-Mangalore.
The routes chosen for Konnect were being operated by Jet Airways at 50 per cent load factor. Research indicated that a low fare product on these routes would see load factor exceed 70 per cent and a passenger increase of about 35 per cent.
JetLite was already operating on a network with seat factors of over 70 per cent which Jet does not want to “disrupt”. “What I want is a quick-to-implement rapid and faster solution to a changing market condition which is what Jet Airways Konnect offers,” said an official of Jet Airways.
Further, JetLite and Jet Airways Konnect have common features in terms of being priced at a low fare carrier level (for the economy class), buying meals on-board and earning miles on the Jet Privilege membership.
The difference lies in the routes they fly on. The airline says that the routes of both offerings have been so planned that there will be no overlap. In the event of this happening, the timings will be suitably changed. Jet Konnect could also be available as an option on metro routes during lean hours when there is more leisure traffic.
