I am tapping in this piece on my iPad on UK 893 from Bengaluru to Hyderabad, Air Vistara’s “last day last flight” in some ways. I have done the “first day first flight” thingie on Vistara nearly a decade ago, and here goes my final flight on the airline on 11th November, 2024. At the stroke of the midnight hour, Air Vistara merges seamlessly into the mother airline Air India. My flight just took off at 7.40 pm thankfully, as I was hoping it was not going to be delayed. Imagine taking off at 11pm of today and landing post midnight tomorrow. That would be weird, taking off on a Vistara and landing in an Air India flight.
Weird humour apart, this is a nostalgic moment for me. I have loved this airline from start. When I was looking for a gold-standard airline in India to replace Jet Airways, in came Vistara. This Tata-Singapore Airlines offering did everything it could to make you comfortable. The true blue asset of the airline was its crew. Well trained, and as polite and efficient as an airline crew needs to be. Inflight service was superior, and the good thing was that everyone got a free meal as part of the ticket. Its business class cabin established a reputation that filled the rather large shoes Jet Airways business class left behind. Every now and then you would receive a book to read at home and your birthday meant a potted plant would arrive to make your day. Small freebies apart, the airline did its best to take care of customers as they must be.
At the stroke of the midnight hour tonight then, Vistara will morph into Air India. I am told that the old Vistara uniforms and cabin livery will take a while to change, but expect a seamless movement of pilot and cabin crew all around. The ground crew, maintenance and service seems to have merged already behind the scenes effortlessly. Within the Air India cabin then you will shortly see pilots of both lineage flying together, just as you will see cabin crew move seamlessly across differently coded flights.
If you still love Vistara, and if you still want to fly the old Vistara way, there is a hack. Pick an AI flight with a 4 digit code starting with digit 2. If you fly AI2893, you will fly the old Vistara aircraft from Hyderabad to Bengaluru. You have no choice on the pilots and the cabin crew of course. But that’s to be expected. What then is an airline? The aircraft you fly? The pilots? The maintenance standards you are promised? The inflight cabin service standards? The food? The service standards? And a lot else? Vistara somehow mastered it all. The ability to start from scratch with the DNA of Singapore Airlines to boot, helped. Vistara in its near ten year existence got itself noticed.
Air India has a decidedly high set of standards to emulate. India’s pride of an airline has seen its ups and downs. Once rated to be the best in the world, Air India has seen its downside in the past. As the Tata group and Campbell Wilson strive hard to revive the Air India brand imagery to what it should be, the airline has an in-home offering put together by the house of Tatas itself to use as a gold standard. Vistara is a template to emulate for sure. Maybe it’s time to establish a platinum standard offering. The first step is to get Air India appreciated by its users as much as Vistara was, and the second step is to exceed it all.
Post this merger, Air India is the number 2 airline in India. If you see ten flights in the air, 6 of them are Indigo, 3 are Air India and one is everyone else. As Indigo rejigs and brings in its own loyalty program( Bluchip) and a version of business class seating with its “Indigo Stretch”, the competition is going to be intense. Indigo will want to retain its 6 out of 10 position, just as AI will want to climb up and grab more.
As Vistara merges with Air India, the challenges will be many. There is a big brother and a younger sibling out here in this merger. Two sets of people, two cultures, two attitudes, two competencies and two sets of existing abilities clash with one another. Which one will have the bigger say is the question. In this David and Goliath play, both need to cooperate and play. The idea of this merger is to ensure that two airlines do not compete within the one common house of Tata. The idea is to cooperate and put together a better offering than ever before. A superior offering.
One of two things can happen with this merger. Either Vistara will become a caterpillar from a butterfly, or more positively, will become a Super Butterfly from a regular butterfly it was.
I am sure Air India will do its best and make the Super Butterfly moment happen. It’s important to make a positive case study of this merger. The whole world is watching. As are you. And so am I.
Harish Bijoor is a business and brand strategy expert & Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
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