Jet and Sahara

The recent acquisition of Air Sahara by Jet Airways has been discussed threadbare in the public domain, and there have been a lot of questions asked about its ramifications.

Coming from an Aviation family, this is an area that has always been close to my heart, and I’m bound to have an opinion on the matter.

For what it’s worth, the deal is heavily overpriced. Sahara is definitely not worth that much. Sahara doesn’t even own its planes, they’re leased. What Jet does acquire, however, is something less tangible. It gains over 200 pilots, and an array of ground staff. Sahara assets spread throughout the country are important. Sahara has hangers in places like Calcutta and Hyderabad, where Jet doesn’t. 60% of Jet flights originate and terminate at Mumbai, where most of Jet’s assets are concentrated.

Perhaps more important are the less tangible gains that Jet has made. Jet now dominates the Delhi-Mumbai sector, the most lucrative. Much of the traffic on this sector are dedicated business travellers, who can afford to travel on any airline they like, and are less likely to shift to budget airlines. Jet also gains Sahara’s code sharing rights to international Destination. This is an aspect that has been overlooked, perhaps. Code Sharing rights are hard to get, and many airlines routine club together to operate a single flight. Jet has been denied access to US skies, though it’s only a matter of time.

But I still wonder if all this was worth it. After all, Sahara was floundering. Profits were razor thin, and valuation of personnel is a difficult task. Sure, Pilots are tough to get. Last year Jet had to cancel flights because there weren’t enough pilots to go around. Sahara’s pilots are Boeing trained the same as Jet. This makes the pilots an immensely valuable resource. Training a pilot from scratch is immensely expensive. How expensive? Well, flying a commercial Jet requires a CPL (Commercial Pilot’s License), and training somebody up to that level costs well over 13-14 lakhs. As you can imagine, training to become a pilot is something most people can’t afford. Finding qualified, experienced pilots is harder still. Plus, they should be trained to fly the same kind of jets that you have. Acquiring pilots from Indian Airlines and Kingfisher is not possible, since they have Airbus Conversion. Retraining them for Boeing Conversion is too impractical.

Still, what does all this mean for the average flyer? A few weeks ago I travelled on Jet, Mumbai-Chennai-Madurai. Though it was nice to see smiling faces on Jet, I had my reservations. Most of the staff seemed younger than me, and I’m young! I’m not sure how they’d cope in an emergency situation. Experience really counts. Are they emotionally equipped to deal with a terrorist wielding a semi-automatic, or are they limited to handing me my aloo bondas? I dunno.

However, there are other things that kind of pissed me off about Jet. Throughout the flight, the guy sitting in front of me had his seat reclined, something that makes eating very difficult. If this had been Indian Airlines, a matronly Airhostess would have barked at him to keep his seat back upright…. But sadly, nothing of the sort happened here. But more importantly, it was shocking to see the lack of basic procedures. The girl sitting next to me (a child star from a recent bollywood film) and her mother kept fiddling with their Sony Ericsson 910. Now, admittedly, this phone has a flight mode, which makes it safe to use in flight. However, NO electronic devices may be used while taxing or descent, as it seriously screws up the sensitive navigational arrays. Twice during descent, the pilot had to announce over the PA to turn off all electronic devices. But none of the flight crew had the nerve to turn the lady to turn off her phone. Is this the great service Jet offers? Gee, I’ll be sure to remember that when we’re plummeting to Earth as a giant fireball.