Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Happy Landing

I was checking into a Jet flight sometime this year and had to sign something for excess baggage. I was given a Kingfisher pen by the Jet staff. I smiled at them and they broke out laughing. If only I knew this was coming :)

As an aviation enthusiast I like both these guys for what they have achieved. At a time when you were made to feel obliged for boarding an IC came around Naresh with an unseen class of service. And when you thought that was the pinnacle came around this beer man giving travelers a reason to fly beyond just reaching a destination. And its remarkable what thus guy's achieved. Kingfisher is one among the World's five 5-star rated airlines. Giving her company are the like of Emirates, Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines - all of which are state funded.

This looks like a great study on branding. Both carriers have a distinct brand equity and it'll be interesting to see how they avoid trampling over one and another's feet. But I guess when you bleed theres no spaces for Ego's.

I hope both of them just stick to benefiting from synergies and continue to operate under 2 distinct entities. Otherwise, am gonna miss the competition. Meanwhile, I'm waiting for Paramount to go Pan India.   

13 comments:

dharma said...

yes it's indeed true that the industry needs consolidation during tough market conditions. But thats also the time when employees are considered "excess baggage" resulting in significant lay offs across the industry.

Sugar said...

but thats the point right of these huge mergers right.. to just grab a huge market share.. and a great reason to jeer at the repeal of the MRTP act..these result in monopolies eventually..So much for the words "sovereign secular socialist democratic republic"..
hmmm...horray to the capitalist regime!

Baidik said...

Hey edita!

Yup, thats the point.. but as an aviation enthusiast I'd hate to see any one of these brands go away. But still, I thought the Competition Act fills in the gaps left by MRTP.. Illiya? What is ur area of prac btw ?

Sugar said...

am a complete loser...did not venture into lit..am doing some random, unforseen, thankless job in an oil marketing major :(...so though the answer cud be petroleum laws..it still is not!

Baidik said...

Energy laws huh.. quite a place to be.. and did you say Oil Mkting major? I envy this lot :p

Siddharth said...

This deal has "Marriage of Convenience" writ all over it! Did u notice Naresh Goyal smiling ear to ear yesterday during the announcement. This is gonna save him a truckload of cash.

As for the Beer baron, everything other than his liqor business is in the "red". So this move was somewhere in the cards.

Something similar to the banking scene in US, heavy consolidation the airline space worldwide is expected now. After all, they're set to lose 165K potential business class travellers worldwide--thanks to the financial sector layoffs.

Saikat Saha said...

I guess it's imporant to recognize that tougher times are ahead....only way out is to be 'competent enough'from an individuals standpoint and secondly companys need to infuse a greater amount of compassion in their strategic and transactional persuits....

Sleepy said...

Hey, I did not understand one thing. Talking about lay offs ha. Initially naresh said he had to lay off people for the sake of the company. But when he announced that he took back people he claims to have not known about the lay offs.. wouldnt u call this white lie?

Baidik said...

Pathetic liar... you cant digest this from someone who thwarted TATA's entry into Indian aviation.

Sleepy said...

Oh! This is news for me. Didnt know that he thwarted Tata's plans. How and when did that happen?

Baidik said...

Arrey this was long back.. when BJP was in power.. TATA wanted to tie up with Singapore Airlines to launch a domestic carrier... was widely reported that Naresh played spoil sport

Sleepy said...

Those days i was a student. aah no wonder i did not know

Deepak G said...

remember the tamil saying "koodi vazhandal kodi nanmai" its a pity that everyone is realising it this late...anyways better late than never...