Brief of Meeting had with Mr Ajay Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, Spice Jet & TAAI

A virtual meeting with Mr Ajay Singh, CMD, SpiceJet was convened at 1400 hrs on Friday, February 11th, 2022. The agenda of the meeting was to clarify the ambiguity around the airline’s future and that of the Indian aviation sector, SpiceJet’s plans for 2022, launch of new flights and destinations, the airline’s logistics arm SpiceXpress and other concerns raised by TAAI members.

We are glad to share that we had a very good and constructive meeting with Mr. Singh and SpiceJet Chief Commercial Officer, Ms. Shilpa Bhatia.

Mrs Jyoti Mayal, President, initiated the discussion and welcomed and thanked Mr Singh & Ms Bhatia for taking out time for the meeting. On behalf of members, she shared concerns on the continued challenges faced by the travel, tourism and aviation sectors, which have been the worst hit by the Covid pandemic. While many airlines across the globe had to unfortunately shutdown operations. Mrs Mayal said it was a relief that no such airline collapse was witnessed in India and it was a big achievement that our airlines had weathered the storm and were performing well. While some airlines in India were forced to retrench employees during the pandemic, Mrs Mayal noted with satisfaction and appreciated the fact that there was zero retrenchment in SpiceJet and the Company had done its best to take care of its employees.

She discussed the challenges that the sector was facing and sought clarity on the future plans of SpiceJet, its focus on commercial passenger operations and it’s fast growing logistics business, refunds, credits of TDS and incentives to members, if any, to members due to cancellations, and also a plan to further strengthen the relations between SpiceJet and TAAI and make it mutually beneficial. She also asked for inputs of the relevance of IATA for the Indian market as she had already had a meeting with the earlier Minister of Civil Aviation.

Responding & thanking Mrs. Mayal & TAAI for initiating this meeting, Mr Singh very candidly explained the challenges faced by Indian airlines & addressed all queries. Ms Shilpa Bhatia clarified that there were no pending refunds to any agent.

Mr Singh informed that under SpiceJet as the parent entity a new company has been incorporated in the name of SpiceXpress which will exclusively focus on Cargo. He went on to invite the TAAI members to come forward and leverage the opportunity by venturing into Cargo business bookings, for which mutually agreed commercial arrangements can be worked out.

Mr Singh said the pandemic had disrupted Indian aviation, tourism and travel sectors in ways no one could have anticipated. But challenges like this bring the best out of an airline like SpiceJet. SpiceJet has always looked for opportunities in the face of adversity, he said. SpiceJet built SpiceXpress during the pandemic and has grown that business from a $30-40 million a year to a $350 million a year business.

Mr Singh further clarified that with aviation coming back on track, especially the domestic operations, a window of opportunity is open to both airlines and travel agents to work in tandem and reap the attached benefits, which could be a stepping stone to revive fast. Had it not been for the recent Omicron scare, the recovery of the aviation sector and restoration of regular air travel would have started much earlier, Mr Singh said & hoped that this was a temporary setback.

He emphasised the need for having a domestic entity like IATA in place to have a more robust in-house management of issues and challenges. He suggested that Indian aviation and travel trade have its own issues and the way of handling them, and therefore having in place a domestic arrangement like such would be much helpful in dealing with the same, which was seconded by all present.

Mr Paras Lakhia, Chairman, Airline Council discussed various issues concerning agents, operational issues, changes in flight schedules etc.

TAAI representatives, Mr Shreeram Patel, Hon. Treasurer; Mr Sameer Karnani, Chairman – Western Region; Mr Amish Desai, Chairman (Karnataka Chapter), and Dr Himanshu Talwar, Executive Director all reemphasised the above issues, which were duly acknowledged by Mr Singh with an assurance of personally looking into the same and get it addressed on priority.

Mr Singh reemphasised the importance of travel agents & reiterated that SpiceJet would be happy to collaborate in revenue sharing of all ancillary products & also help to build a healthier & technology driven environment.

Mr Singh said the government realises the importance of the aviation sector and has taken many initiatives in the last five years to help the sector but much more needs to be done & it can we be achieved by working together.

In India, aviation fuel is taxed at the highest level in the world, airport charges are extremely high and there are all forms of other taxes and duties and regulatory complications which make us uncompetitive. These need to be resolved because India has this phenomenal potential of being an incredible aviation space given its geographic location, given the demand and the population that we have, he said.

He informed that at a post-budget interaction, on behalf of the civil aviation, travel, tourism and hospitality sectors, he had raised with the Hon’ble Finance Minister, Ms Nirmala Sitharaman the difficulties being faced by these sectors because of Covid. He had requested the Hon’ble FM to consider granting Infrastructure Status to these sectors to facilitate lending by banks and financial institutions. He has also requested the Hon’ble FM’s support for inclusion of Aviation Turbine Fuel under GST.

Mr Singh informed, the Hon. FM has promised to consider granting infrastructure/ industry status to help the sectors of aviation, travel, tourism and hospitality. She has also assured that she will take up the issue of inclusion of Aviation Turbine Fuel under GST at the next meeting of the GST Council.

Mr Singh updated that SpiceJet had successfully reintroduced Boeing 737 MAX aircraft into operations and 11 of its 737 Max were already operational. The return of the MAX will help SpiceJet add new routes and destinations and improve operational efficiency.

Mr Singh said he believed that the worst is behind us and the road ahead is full of opportunities and a bright future awaits our airlines, travel and tourism sectors.

Mrs Mayal also applauded SpiceJet for having operated hundreds of charter flights in the last two years at a time when scheduled international flights had been suspended and creating business opportunities for agents as well as helping hundreds of thousands of people to travel to and from India.

Appreciation was shared for Chief Commercial Officer, Ms Shilpa Bhatia for always immediately resolving issues for the trade and our membership.

The meeting ended with thanks from all present on assurance to each other for working towards the industry & to have regular quarterly meeting with Chairman & to have a physical meeting soon to take all talks forward by exploring new opportunities as discussed.