ITV

Category: Air Deccan

  • Air Deccan ties up with Travelguru to offer budget travel solutions

    BANGALORE: Air Deccan (AD) India’s second largest airline announced a strategic tie up with Travelguru, (TG) an online travel portal to provide budget hotel bookings and holiday packages. The tie up will provide AD passengers the option of selecting and making confirmed reservations in 2,500 hotels including over 1,500 budget/ economy hotels, through its website www.airdeccan.net. The hotels are located in 160 cities across India including all destinations that AD flies to.

    TG claims that the hotels included offer a wide range of facilities such as free airport transfer, breakfast and other value adds, making this a single window service for all travel solutions. AD claims that their passengers are assured the best available hotel rates along with instant confirmation of the booking. Passengers will have online access to both AD and TG contact centers for speedy and accurate response to their queries.

    The deal announced today is one more initiative towards ancillary revenue generation (revenue generated form income other that seat charges), for AD, whose Captain Gpinath dreams of having people to fly for free, the revenues for the airlines to be generated by ancillary income.

    For TG, this means that 8 million passengers that AD will fly this year are potential customers.

    “Travelguru focuses on help customers find the best options for their travel. Besides, smart airfare options and deals, Travelguru’s biggest differentiator is its strong leadership position in Hotel & Vacation Packages offerings. Travelguru offers instantly book able stay options within over 1500 hotels across 160 cities n India and 70,000 hotels across seven continents, the largest any online travel company can do currently, ” said TG co-founder and CEO Ashwin Damera.

    “Another differentiator in the true sense is transparency to a consumer and true real time booking experience. At Travelguru, we display all rates on flights and hotels inclusive of all applicable taxes. We only show available rooms and flights that the customer can actually view and book instantly, making his interaction with Travelguru real time whether it is online or offline through our call centre. We have chosen to stay away from the most frequently followed book on request model that other portals tend to follow, some have now started following a hybrid model.”

    TG with revenues of around US$25 million recently received funding amounting to US$15 million from Sequoia and Battery ventures, a US based VC company. Damera says that his company spent around US$5million annually towards marketing and promotion, most of which is focused on the internet. Contract look after the creative work and MPG the media buying for TG.

  • Air Deccan launches in-flight advertising; partners Cutting Edge Media

    Domestic Indian airline Air Deccan will carry advertising on all its airbus. The airline has joined hands with Mumbai-based marketing solutions provider Cutting Edge Media for the project rolling out in August.
     
     

    Air Deccan, chief revenue officer John Kuruvilla said, “We decided to go with Cutting Edge Media as our partners for in-flight entertainment and in-flight branding. They have the necessary bandwidth and expertise to deliver on various advertising opportunities. More so, Cutting Edge Media shows a tremendous zest for innovations and non-traditional media options and we are confident of the results.”
     
     

    According to the statement in the press release, this concept has gained popularity overseas but none of the Indian air carriers have ever considered it till now. Air Deccan claims to give advertisers a chance to impact their brand presence to a hundred per cent captive audience – 82 per cent business travelers.

    The passengers will be provided with in-flight entertainment via 16 TV sets airing current news and general entertainment. NDTV, CNBC and Star have agreed to provide news on business, Bollywood and more.

    Advertisers, in addition to advertising on the in-flight television screens, can hop on board and choose from an array of latest new ad mediums on the inside and outside the aircraft. The space on the overhead stowage bins, reserve side of boarding pass, baggage tags, steps of the ladders, cockpit doors, headrests, full centre aisle carpet will provide ad space to potential advertisers.

    The advertisement can also be placed on the aircraft exterior and daily flying billboard.
    This media vehicle can be viewed by over 12-lakh air travelers using Indian airports every month. For the passengers, NDTV, CNBC and Star have agreed to provide news on business, Bollywood and more.

    Cutting Edge Media, CEO Murtuza Kagalwala said, “Cutting Edge Media recognises the importance of non-traditional niche media. With in-flight entertainment and in-flight branding on Air Deccan, we will live up to the expectations that advertisers and ad agencies have from us.”