In May 2009, Jet Airways launched Jet Konnect, a no-frills brand, to take on IndiGo and Spicejet, which were slowly chipping away its market share.
Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal's gamble clicked and today Konnect accounts for 60 per cent of the airline's domestic capacity.
Along with JetLite, it's roughly twice the number of low-fare seats of Indigo and SpiceJet combined.
That's an irony considering that Goyal had dismissed the low-cost carrier model as untenable just three years ago.
On the contrary, Jet is now set to take a big leap forward on its no-frills strategy.
The airline is planning to introduce no-frills service flights in the price sensitive markets in the Gulf region.
This will mark another break in tradition, as till now, the airline has offered only full service products on its international routes that account for about 65 per cent of its total revenue.
The airline flies to 24 international routes, including 10 cities in the Gulf which account for nearly 40 per cent of all outbound traffic from India.
Jet's loads on the Gulf sector were 73.9 per cent (in the second quarter of this financial year) and 77.9 per cent (in the first quarter), which were lower than the loads on the US, UK and South East Asia sectors in the same period.
A couple of reasons have prompted the Jet management to take a relook at its Gulf operations.
First, competition in the sector has increased. The newest entrant, IndiGo, has begun luring away passengers with attractive fares.
The others who operate on this route are Air India, Air India Express and Kingfisher Airlines, besides a host of foreign carriers -- both from the full service segment (Emirates, Qatar, Gulf Air etc) as well as low-fare ones (Air Arabia, Bahrain Air).
The other crucial factor is passenger profile."On the Gulf routes, the traffic mostly comprises migrant labour.
"They want the lowest of the fares.
"There is not much demand for business class seats except on the Dubai route," an airline source says.
Moreover , Jet and Air India are point to point carriers. In contrast Emirates and other Gulf airlines carry 60-70 per cent of passengers onward to Europe, the US or Africa and hence are able to fill up business class seats.
"If an airline operating on this route drops its fares by even Rs 100,
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