Vistara, the Tata-SIA joint venture, will sunset at midnight today. The journey, which spanned 3594 days in Indian skies and expanded beyond, did not really do justice to its name which means “Vistaar” or expanse. As social media pays tributes and many take their last flights on the airline, a look at some pivotal moments which shaped not just the airline but also Indian aviation in one way or another.
Premium Economy
The airline became the pioneer of Premium Economy in India. It entered the market with what it described as a detailed study of having 16 Business class seats, 36 Premium Economy and only 96 economy class seats. Blame the study or the execution; it soon realised it was too premium heavy shifting to 8 Business, 24 Premium Economy and 126 economy class seats, further squeezing in one more row in the economy later to make it 132 economy seats for the A320neo.
The hard work of introducing, differentiating and popularising Premium Economy will bear fruits for Air India, as it sets out to reconfigure its aircraft and introduce Premium Economy. For Air India though, which in the government days had industry-leading legroom in Economy class, this means crunching the economy class and offering a similar legroom a class higher in the hierarchy.
Retro Jet
For an airline, the most talked about part is livery. Passengers and aviation geeks tend to comment about the livery the most. In Indian aviation, apart from some advertisement jets starting with Air Deccan, Jet Airways and SpiceJet; the liveries were standardised. Air India’s entry into Star Alliance led to a Star Alliance livery plane coming up while AirAsia India paid tribute to Late. JRD Tata with a special jet. Yet, a true retro livery was missing and Vistara got one in September 2018.
787-9
The airline became the first and only carrier to order and operate the 787-9 Dreamliner in India. While Air India has been one of the early customers of the Dreamliner, all its 27 aircraft are 787-8 variants. This also became the first widebody aircraft in India to sport the Premium Economy cabin.
Fleet renewal
For a long, two airlines were certain to become the first all-modern fleet airlines. Go Air (later renamed Go FIRST) and IndiGo were well prepared with orders locked in long back in 2011 and a fleet renewal plan in place. The issues with Pratt & Whitney engines meant that Go FIRST eventually went down blaming the engines and IndiGo ended up inducting more older generation A320ceo rather than getting them out of the fleet.
With CFM-powered A320neos, Vistara became the first and only airline to have a modern fleet in Indian skies, later accompanied by Akasa Air which ordered the MAX aircraft.
Profits remained elusive
The airline reached new levels of customer service, became the only private full-service airline in the country post fall of Jet Airways and grew at breakneck speed even during the pandemic. A lot was expected from the house of Tata’s and SIA but nine years later, the airline did not record profits ever. This not only shows how cutthroat the Indian market is but also tells us that two large groups are not a solution in aviation, even as stalwarts from both groups took leadership positions all along. This also remains a reminder to the merged entity as it sets out towards fleet renewal and attracting more passengers who are willing to pay more.
Tail Note
The airline has operated 5.26 lakh flights until September this year since its inception, carrying 7.3 crore passengers, over 90% of those being in domestic sectors. The core three-class philosophy took a hit as it inducted former Jet Airways aircraft, a different fleet type (B737s) with dual-class rather than three-class and additionally also inducted mono-class aircraft.
Vistara joins the likes of iconic brands like Jet Airways, and Kingfisher Airlines amongst others in Indian aviation, but it is like Indian Airlines which shut by merger rather than for other reasons. It is often said that a superior brand and experience is merging with an inferior one and time will tell how successful the merger is. Air India has been publishing how the Vistara aircraft would continue to operate its current network and would be numbered differently with AI2xxx. However, right from the word go, there are exceptions to these, possibly a sign of times to come.
The writer is an aviation analyst.