Air India aims to increase its loyalty membership base by 5x to 50 million over the next five years with increase in flights, introduction of new co-branded credit cards and addition of programme partners giving passengers more opportunities to earn and burn miles.

Pre-privatisation, Air India had 2.6 million loyalty programme members and that increased to 4.7 million last April when the airline revamped its programme. The number swelled to over 10.3 million last November following the merger of Vistara with Air India.

“Air India is adding around 150,000 new members every month since the revamp of the programme last April. We aim to grow member base of our Maharaja Club programme by 5 times over the next five years,” said an airline spokesperson.

The airline said 5x growth will come up organically. At present, Maharaja Club covers Air India only and there is a plan to extend the programme to Air India Express as well. Co-branded cards will be a big part of our strategy, the airline’s chief commercial officer Nipun Aggarwal had said last week.

Air India and Air India Express flew 65 million passengers in 2024 but proportion of loyalty members to the total traffic is still lower compared to overseas peers.

For context, Flying Blue (Air France -KLM) and Miles & More (Lufthansa) loyalty programmes have 26 million and 38 million members respectively. Singapore Airlines’s KrisFlyer programme has over 9.4 million members with India among its top growth markets.

Frequent flyer programmes and co-branded cards are a major source of ancillary revenue for airlines in the West. For the big three US airlines, American Airlines, Delta and United, frequent flyer programmes contributed 10-12 per cent of their total revenue in 2023, IdeaWorksCompany, a consulting firm, said in a report last October.

Air India did not comment on current and projected revenue from loyalty programme.

“We are seeing an uptake in membership enrolments from various geographies outside India, with a notable increase from West Asia and the US,” the spokesperson said.]

In the past, Air India was not a preferred carrier for redemption of miles among Star Alliance member airlines but that trend is changing. 

“Redemptions from members of other Star Alliance member airlines have nearly doubled since the programme’s revamp in April 2024,” he added.

Maharaja Club

“Growth in membership for Maharaja Club will come from strength of network, introduction of Air India Express as a core airline and programme partners. Also, Air India has the advantage of being a Star Alliance member airline which should also attract people to enroll with them,” said Ajay Awtaney, editor, LiveFromALounge.com, an Indian aviation and loyalty-focussed website.

“IndiGo launched its BluChip loyalty programme last year and it’s in nascent stage. I believe going forth there will be strong competition between the loyalty programmes of these two airlines,” Awtaney added.