New Delhi, Feb 29 (life) Travellers have spread their wings like never before, and that's exactly where Vistara strikes chord with today's wanderlusts. The airline, which is a joint venture of Tata Group and Singapore Airlines derives its name from "Vistaar", Sankrit for "a limitless expanse". It recently launched direct flight operations from New Delhi to Kathmandu, the capital city of the Himalayan nation Nepal.
Kathmandu is the fifth and latest destination outside of India after Singapore, Dubai and Bangkok in the airline's fast growing network.
"We are very happy to inaugurate services to Nepal. Travellers to and from Nepal will now experience India's only five-star airline that is committed to making a mark with a world-class product and unparallelled service delivery," said Vinod Kannan, Chief Commercial Officer, Vistara.
Vistara's motto has been providing the finest flying experience to its customers. An industry pioneer in bringing forth the best of experiences, the airline has been the first one to introduce the "Premium Economy" class in India, apart from a host of other initiatives like Club Vistara, Freedom Fares catering to the flyers.
"We will soon deploy aircraft with our three-class configuration and offer the only Premium Economy class for travel between India and Nepal," Kannan added.
It offers a unique three-class configuration featuring economy, business, and premium economy. The Business class offers a comfortable recline, extendable footrest and personal storage space, lounge access, a premium three-course meal options and choice of newspapers and magazines.
The premium economy class boosts of a personal space with extra legroom and longer armrests. To attract the travellers in this segment it has a more extensive meal choices, in-seat USB port-holders in some of the aircrafts, priority baggage-handling, separate boarding queue, among other amenities.
Food and beverage, provided by the renowned airline caterer TajSats is one of the main draws of the inflight experience with a plethora of options from Indian to Continental dishes on the platter. The airline has also introduced Starbucks coffee onboard domestic flights beyond 90-minutes duration.
So, how does Vistara sees itself performing in a price-sensitive and loyalty-dearth, competitive Indian domestic civil aviation market, where "time" and "cost" are important determinants, too?
The airline remains committed to its target audience, which is high-revenue business travellers to provide seamless luxury experience and flexible flight-timings, Kannan quips.
He firmly believes that there are passengers who are willing to pay a premium to avail niche services Vistara has onboard.
With codeshare agreements with the likes of British Airways, Lufthansa and United Airlines, Vistara is looking to expand its wings to more international destinations in the near future. With a fleet consisting of 32 Airbus 320 and 7 Boeing 737-800NG aircraft, Vistara currently connects 36 destinations.
(Aditi Roy can be contacted at aditi.r@.in)
( With inputs from IANS )