Question

Topic: Branding

Kingfisher Airlines - Strategy

Posted by Anonymous on 4/24/2006 at 4:25 AM ET 250 Points
Hi all,

I am doing a Project wherein i am supposed to study the "The Positioning Strategy of Low Cost Airways in India w.r.t Air Deccan and Kingfisher".

How both of them are different in positioning themselves in a market which provides less scope for differentiation and in the light of foreign players showing interest in Indian Airline Industry?

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  • Posted on 4/24/2006 at 4:49 AM Member
    Hello Raj,

    While all low cost airlines are basically looking at volumes: they want to get the guys travelling by trains to start flying, going by their advertising and their entire approach, I think Air Deccan and Kingfisher Airlines have very distinctly different strategies. Air Deccan promotes itself as a "no-frills" lowest priced airline in the country. Whereas Kingfisher, tho' they may be priced lower than Indian Airlines and Jet, offer a great flying experience.

    Air Deccan's strategy is very clearly focused on low rates and this comes through all their advertising. But I don't know whether it is such a good idea, because if I were to choose between Air Deccan and Kingfisher I would choose the latter, simply for the experience they provide. In typical Vijay Mallya style, everything about Kingfisher Airlines is designed to make you feel good. It starts from the airport itself. A red carpet in front of the Kingfisher Airlines counter. Staff to take away luggage and do all the scanning, checking, etc. The planes, the seats, the food everything is definitely superior. One walks out of a Kingfisher flight feeling "good".

    Air Deccan on the other hand, doesn't have a very "upmarket" image.

    I suggest you go through their websites and their advertising for a better understanding of the same. Maybe you can do a small survey to discover how people feel about these airlines. This would make your project more interesting. You could probably talk to the advertising agencies working on these two brands for a better understanding of the same. Air Deccan is being handled by Orchard, Bangalore.

    I hope I have been of some help. Good luck!

    Nahida Sunil
  • Posted by Anubhav Pateriya on 4/24/2006 at 5:23 AM Member
    Hi

    Though your project specifically highlights these two names, actually Kingfisher airlines is not a low cost airline per se. Since its inception Vijay Mallaya has been postioning it as a separate class called Kingfisher class, same for all its customers.
    Low cost airlines on the other hand are players like air deccan & spicejet. These totally thrive on price as their competitive edge. To compare the positioning strategy of Kingfisher vs air deccan, you will need to study the segments they are targeting firsthand & then their positioning. Broadly where the target segment of kingfisher airlines is lifestyle & youth segment, which its plans to pull away from jet & Govt palyers, Air deccan & spicejet are into creating new flyers by upgrading 1st class or AC train travellers to air travel. Hence they are giving plain vanilla offerings w/o any added facilities... just fly at lowest cost.
    Kingfisher on the other hand is projecting the colorful image with red carpet, young & smart attendants, music & other accessories etc. No wonder the positioning is entirely different as targets & strategy are different!

    Anubhav
  • Posted on 4/24/2006 at 5:34 AM Accepted
    Hi,

    I i want to to differentiate both airlines. Here is a short answers.

    Air Deccan: "No Frills" - ALways low prices
    Kingfisher: "Experience" - Food, attendents etc

    Kingfisher details/ strategy: Vijay Mallya is referred to as India's Richard Branson. A great part of the personality of the Kingfisher brand is based on Mallya's personality.

    1. Co-branding partnerships with like-minded brands and an aggressive strategy to promote its guest loyalty programme, King Club, would be the major focus of UB Group's Kingfisher Airlines this year. The company is planning to spend close to Rs 40 crore on various media and below-the-line marketing activities for the year.
    2. Running several guest loyalty programmes. Already enrolled 20,000 within two months of launch.
    3. Tying up with a number of restaurants
    4. Talks with Goa Tourism to boost domestic traffic during monsoon
    5. Done promos with Malaysia Tourism to organise a golf tournament for CEOs in Delhi
    6. Running online contests to boost traffic
    7. Looking at partnering with premium hotels like Park Hotel

    Air Deccan details/ strategy:
    1. India's low-cost carrier launch an option of booking, payment and re-scheduling of flights through SMS
    2. Tied up with Reliance WebWorld to offer an option of booking air tickets through a nationwide retail chain
    of 241 real broadband centres across 104 cities in India

    AD has more of tangibles and the other possesing emotional angle.

    As nahida also mentioned, after stepping out from Kingfisher airlines, you feel good. Kingfisher has stuck the right chord by entering into a vacuum between Jet and AD. So they offering the best with prices lower than Jet.

    I personally had a bitter experience as there was a huge delay in the flight. Mine was not an exception.

    They were together in news in October last year. Kingfisher Airlines signed with Air-Deccan to buy out latter's extra ASKMs (available seat kilometres).

    Hope this will help
  • Posted on 4/24/2006 at 6:15 AM Member
    hi raj,
    well when it comes to the comparison between the two..as correctly pointed out by nitin, they run on two entirely different concepts.Air deccan is on the lookout for extreme price cutting, neglecting the comfort level of the customers and the target audience of ths airline is not sensitive to comfort but price...hence they are still able to generate numbers because the customer cannot pay a bigger price for comfort.
    Whereas the kingfisher is targeting those customers that are ready to pay a bit extra for comfort and hence it is not only a major threat to jets/Indian airlines but also to a certain extent AD hence the positioning of the two is entirely different and it seems imprudent toi compare both.
    may b ths could be of some help
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 12/27/2011 at 2:33 PM Member
    This is NOT a branding question, this is a HOMEWORK question.
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