Brand development

It is my firm belief that to build a successful brand, it is essential to understand the market you plan to target and what the customer wants. Success of an enterprise depends on this understanding and on the ability to achieve and deliver. Many lessons we learnt in the early days helped us form the shape of Jet Airways you see today. The most important insight was that two-thirds of the domestic air-traffic in India was business traffic. We set out to meet the business traveller's needs by offering a luxurious business class in terms of seat pitch and configuration, same day return flights on all important metro routes, tele-checking, city-checking, and the service design, etc.

The success of this strategy can be seen from the fact that 75-80 percent of the traffic we carry today is business or business-related travellers and today we are described as the businessman's airline. In fact, the emphasis we have consistently placed on on-time performance, safety, and responsive service both on the ground and in the air, are all fundamentally aimed at ensuring that we meet the concerns of business travellers and fulfil their needs.

Vision and mission

My team felt that there was an over-riding need to compose the statement of intent and a need to state our vision and goals clearly and precisely. We then developed - the single most important ingredient of our success - a clear and well-defined mission statement. The reason I consider this stage of developing our mission as very important is that through good times or bad, even during a high growth phase, our mission statement helped us maintain a focus on our purpose and objective, namely to offer a world-class product and service quality to our customers as well as constantly innovate, thereby changing and setting higher and better industry norms.

Business model

I also believe that Jet Airways owes its success to a well thought out business model that clearly defined our strategic routes and was designed to be dynamic to adapt to changing environments and needs. The model was constructed to ensure that the airline is focused on achieving its mission whilst simultaneously ensuring an outward looking organisation that would continuously work towards customer satisfaction.

This necessitated that we have the latest generation Boeing 737-300s as our launch aircraft. In fact, Jet Airways was the only airline to select the young and modern 737-300s. We figured, though the lease costs - which were higher - was cheaper than the operating costs we would otherwise incur in a cheaper version aircraft. Besides, these modern aircraft offered greater operational reliability and marketing advantages, which we could use to establish ourselves as a reliable, efficient, and modern airline. Since then, the airline has inducted other modern generation aircraft and Jet Airways was the first airline in Asia to fly the next generation Boeing 737-800 and that too barely seven months after its commercial induction in the United States.

We have also pursued a policy to phase out our older aircraft and replace them with newer and more advanced planes, thereby making Jet's fleet one of the youngest in the world. The average age of our aircraft fleet is currently 2.8 years. The advantages of a young fleet are two-fold, namely, improved customer appeal and better operating cost economics. Our strategy in terms of aircraft selection has thus enabled the airline to ensure a greater degree of operational reliability, efficiency and on-time schedule whilst achieving higher operating margins through the efficiencies obtained in fuel consumption, maintenance costs, and fleet commonality. The modern fleet selected has also benefited the airline by enabling it to leverage cutting-edge technology to support marketing efforts.

However, building an airline, which would cater to the needs of the business traveller, meant that we had to go beyond just building a fleet of modern aircraft. We need to actually leverage their efficiency so as to provide a market-friendly schedule of operations. The initial steps towards establishing a brand position, that of a "Business Flyer's Airline" were taken when we designed our schedules to provide the businessman the maximum convenience and connectivity. Same day return trips between significant city pairs were provided. A decision was also taken to operate not less than a daily direct flight on any sector and thereby offer flexibility of choice on "day of travel". The market potential and travellers' profile findings were used as an aid to determining routes and schedules.

To further enhance our brand position we decided to develop business class service on our flights. Today, in almost all flights, club premiere - the business class service of Jet Airways - is a brand that enjoys a strong equity among the business class traveller segment and is considered to be better than the business class service of many international airlines.

Besides the choice of aircraft and providing convenient schedules, other factors needed to be streamlined to "create a world class domestic airline", such as the look of the in-flight cabins, the logo colours, the design of the uniforms, the selection of the cutlery, etc. We also ensured that in spite of an average flight time of only 80 minutes, world-class service standards offered on long haul flights would be provided on all Jet Airways flights. We also invested in technology that would enable Jet to offer services that would reduce the time spent by a traveller on the ground. We also computerised our reservation systems and put in place the world's most advanced CRS systems; SABRE.

Our marketing and sales plan also provided for an independent sales force to ensure that the airline developed direct relationships with the travel, trade, and corporate customers. The Jet Airways sales team in fact complements the efforts of the General Service Agent, Jetair, in servicing the network of travel agents across India. Travel agents in every city and town are mapped and classified according to sales potential and credit worthiness. A similar exercise is undertaken to estimate the travel potential of commercial organisations and business houses in each city and town.

Customer satisfaction is a key factor today for success in any sector, more so in the aviation business. We have observed that in the service business, our customer interaction determines whether we maintain, strengthen, or dilute the relationship between them and our service brand. Thus, while understanding the importance of providing a high quality service, the Jet Airways business model has always emphasised the need to enhance customer convenience and upgrade passenger experience through continuous value additions and innovations.

The power of market research

To me the thought of setting up an airline took shape when our domestic skies were opened. We first made thorough studies both internally and through consultants since we wanted to get a better understanding of the vast Indian domestic market, its potential, the travel habits of Indians and market composition so that we could design our product according to customer needs.

A close monitoring of market trends and customer needs through periodic market research has helped us launch many popular concepts. Things like Jet Privilege - the airline's frequent flyer programme - is designed keeping in mind the regular customer's need for recognition. The programme has been refined further to include more travel partners and other value-additions, which we feel will provide features never available to members in any comparable programme.

The origins of Jet Mail - our unique in-flight shopping programme - also lies in a keen understanding of the customer's needs. Since its inauguration, it has proved to be one of our most successful programmes and has generated sales over Rs. 10 Million in the past six months. Also, Jet Airways is one of the few airlines in the world to have developed and branded an in-flight product for children, Jet Kids, complete with backpacks, activity kits, and even a specially designed meal. We have also sought to enhance our customer's flying experience by running special promotion on board our flights in association with other airlines and organisations, where passengers are offered the opportunity to win high value prizes.

Adding value at all stages

One of the basic objectives of our marketing efforts has been to add value to the product that we offer. We have aggressively marketed "Visit India" fares to encourage in-bound tourist traffic from overseas markets. The Visit India fares are promoted through the network of overseas offices, GSAs, alliances and interline partners as well as the airlines' own website www.jetairways.com.

I also believe that success of your business lies in your ability to have your ear to the ground, continuously feel the pulse of customer expectation and ensure ongoing corrections whenever actual delivery falls short of expectations and standards laid down. In this regard, we ensure that vital customer satisfaction data is obtained through service monitor questionnaires from each flight. The data collected covers the entire ambit of customer interaction with us, such as reservations, on-ground and on-board service, meals etc. Customer Relationship Management forms an integral part of the airline's service marketing and systems have been put in place to ensure that customer grievances are attended promptly and service flaws are corrected.

The role of employees

These efforts have been possible because of our clear understanding of the fact that the service industry is not only about products offered and value additions but more importantly it is about the employees who construct the success of the service provider. It is their performance, their understanding, their skills, and their attitude that will contribute to the efficiency of a service. Recognising this, we have made continuous efforts towards building an internal atmosphere that recognises employee contribution and fuels their motivation. We train our employees using some of the most modern techniques and facilities and also ensure that the importance of our customer is impressed upon them thoroughly at each stage.

We in Jet Airways have worked hard to provide our passengers the service levels and products that would be provided by any world-class domestic or international airline. The strength of Jet Airways lies in its understanding of the needs of its valued customers better and utilising this understanding to provide products and services that lead to higher level of customer satisfaction. Hence the philosophy for the future will be to continue to understand the customers' expectations and aspirations and treat them as joint partners for the continuing success of the airline. At the same time, it will be our objective to strengthen internal management systems and empower employees to take quick and timely decisions to ensure successful delivery and thereby strengthen the brand value of the airline.

(Excerpts from Naresh Goyal's address to the students at the "Challenges in Service Marketing" seminar at the Indian School of Business on December 1, 2001)