As per a directive by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the unbundling of certain services offered by airlines can potentially reduce the base fare of flight tickets, thereby empowering the passengers to opt for specific services rather than including them by default in the ticket cost.
Unbundling Airline Services
Under this new directive, passengers can select services on an “opt-in” basis and can choose which services they wish to avail. This is contrary to the earlier automatically included(“opt-out”) in the ticket price.
As per DGCA, unbundling these services make the fare affordable and enables the consumers to have flexibility.
Below is the list of services that can be unbundled from the ticket which could potentially lower the airfare:
- Preferential Seating
- Meal/Snack/Drink Charges (Including water)
- Charges to use airline lounges.
- Check in baggage charges.
- Musical Instrument Charges
- Charge for declaring valuable baggage.
While the unbundling won’t have across the board reductions in the airfare, but the passengers now will have more control over their expenses and the same shall align with their budget and preferences.
The managing partner at White & Brief Advocates & Solicitors highlighted that the very same directive makes the travel experience suitable for passengers.
Navigating Child Seating Arrangements in the Aviation Industry
When it comes to the child seating arrangement, then with the aim to improve child safety and comfort, it has been mandated that children up to 12 years of age must be seated with one of the parents or guardians who are travelling on the same PNR.
One of the Supreme Court advocate, Gauri Subramaniam noted that this seating arrangement could result in operational adjustments for the airlines. For this, airlines would have to restrict the availability of web check-in seats for other passengers and could also potentially adjust the ticket prices for the children.
These changes call in for changes in forecasting as well as revenue management strategies to comply with these directives while maintaining the profitability.
For this, the airlines must incorporate cost of selection of seat into ticket prices or for that matter, employ forecasting techniques in order to meet the demand for parent-child seating arrangements.
The importance of balancing the regulatory expectations with the customer centric approaches in order to maintain the brand reputation and profitability in the aviation industry was highlighted.
