Thursday, November 26, 2015

Weak link in the Indigo Airline System

I recently traveled by Indigo from Chandigarh to Bangalore. The flight was perfect with everything that is expected of an airline, starting from check-in; customer service; boarding; in-flight; cabin crew; the flight and of course the hallmark of Indigo - punctuality.
Image: Courtesy - Google Images


However, there was one flaw that seems to stick out, and would stay with me unless something is done about it by the airline. Imagine booking this flight on the Makemytrip website, after having spent an inordinate time trying to book it on the Indigo website. The Indigo website is slow, and has many glitches that forced me to re-enter data and keep refreshing pages.

Probably it has not been upgraded to keep up with the increased traffic loads on the website, caused due to increase in the fleet strength to 97 aircraft now. Or, could it be by design so that the company does not waste resources on a non core function that can be done more efficiently by a third party that has a core business of online reservations. I am not too sure on the philosophy of Indigo on this aspect.

In my opinion a low cost airline survives by cutting costs, and airline owned online booking platforms are one way of keeping costs down, unless Indigo management has now found out a better way to do it.

I am curious to know. Any one who knows this, please share with me on this blog.