Air India offers 'bid and upgrade' plan on long-haul flights

NEW DELHI: Flyers can now bid for business class, while booking economy class, on Air India non-stop flights to the US, Australia and Europe. With this feature, the successful bidder will be able to land a business class seat for up to 75% less than the actual cost.

According to officials, an economy class flyer with Air India will be given the option to bid for business class while booking the flight. They said a higher bidding amount will translate to more chances of landing a business class seat.

A successful bid will lead to an upgrade to business class, and a new boarding pass will be issued at the boarding gate. The seat will be allotted after check-in and is subject to availability of seats in business class.


However, the upgrade will not allow access to lounge. Baggage allowance will also be as per economy class specifications. Only the meal and the seat will be business class.

Flyers will be refunded the amount in case of an unsuccessful bid. The bid will be allowed at different levels, officials said.

The India-US nonstop return ticket starts at Rs 2.5 lakh while economy starts at about Rs 70,000. “For US, the bidding amount starts at about $450. If a passenger bids and gets the seat, then he would have paid just $450 (about Rs 32,000 at current exchange rate) over and above the economy fare for one sector,” said a senior AI official.

Similarly, the bidding amount (payment over and above the economy fare already paid at time of booking) for one-way upgrade on Delhi-London at present is between Rs 13,609 and Rs 41,193. AI is the only Indian carrier with direct flights to the US and Australia.

The bidding will be for domestic sectors also. Delhi-Mumbai business return fares start at Rs 25,000, while the economy fare can be Rs 7-9,000. Bidding for business on this sector currently is in the range of Rs 2,218 to Rs 6,720, said the official.

AI chairman Pradeep Singh Kharola said: “While our overall seat occupancy is about 80%, the business class occupancy is 50-60%. A business class seat going vacant once the gates are closed is revenue lost forever. So we thought of this bidding scheme to offer business class seats at a discount to economy passengers which is a win-win for both the airline and the flyer.” AI offers 72,000 seats daily of which 4,500 are business class seats across its network.

“As of now we have started bidding for flights to US, Australia, Europe, Japan, Hong Kong and on domestic sector to flights between the six metros. We will expand the scheme that was started in last week of December,” Kharola said.

Given the fare difference, AI says it is getting good response to the new bid policy. “On Tuesday (Jan 8) we got 300 bids, of which over half were able to get business class upgrades. The day we hit 1,000 upgrades via bids a day, AI will generate Rs 1 crore extra,” Kharola said.

Since bidders will know if they have got a business seat at boarding gate, they will be beyond the point of availing the lounge facility and would have taken baggage as per economy allowance. So, AI will not need to spend on these two fronts on them.