The step to allow booking of adjacent seat, Vistara hopes, will instil confidence among passengers to take to the skies. Though domestic flights resumed on May 25, passenger loads and utilisation of capacity have been low.
"We have an option now for passengers to book the adjacent seat, especially if the passenger is not comfortable with just one," Vinod Kannan, Vistara’s Chief Commercial Officer, said responding to a query from Moneycontrol during a media briefing on July 6.
He added that the airline has sent communication to its travel partners on the new scheme on July 6. "It will be charged like the other seat. It's the same price," Kannan added.
Interestingly, 24 percent of customers in a survey conducted by Vistara said that their top flying concern was fellow passengers not adhering to health protocols. And 31 percent said they feared exposure to the virus during the journey.
The step to allow booking of adjacent seat, Vistara hopes, will instil confidence among passengers to take to the skies. Though domestic flights resumed on May 25, passenger loads and utilisation of capacity have been low.
At Vistara, Kannan added, the airline is currently operating between 35 to 40 flights a day. "On Sunday, July 5, we operated nearly 50 flights," he said. The senior executive added that the airline is currently using a third of its 41-aircraft fleet, and passenger loads over around the 50 percent mark.
Costumer survey
To know more about how consumers are responding to the SoPs and traveling amidst the COVID-19 outbreak, Vistara conducted a survey among 6,000 passengers.
About 65 percent of the respondents expected to take their next Vistara flight within the next six months and business travel emerged to be the biggest reason for them to travel, with 35 percent of the respondents indicating so, while 25 percent of the respondents expected to travel to visit friends and relatives.
Interestingly, 20 percent of the survey respondents planned to take their next flight to a destination outside of India. Singapore, the United Kingdom and Dubai were the top three destinations, followed by the United States and Thailand.