Turnaround strategy for airlines - "shut down"

Vijay Mallya is flamboyant even in the face of absolute ruin. Here he says "This long-awaited initiative will stabilise the aviation industry and provide much needed financial stability to airlines. In response to the initiative from the government, Kingfisher will immediately reduce air fare across the board as soon as the declared goods classification is approved."

But has he got a choice? He knows he is in deep trouble after having lost 60% of his passengers ever since he cannibalized Air Deccan (the LCC) and hiked the fares. The whole of aviation industry is bleeding as former air travelers flock to not so badly run Indian railways. I used to fly Bombay-Delhi often earlier but after my recent journey by Rajdhani Express (overnight, complete with A/C sleeper, dinner, breakfast, beverages and water), I am a card carrying member of the Rajdhani user club. Soon I’ll be a fan of Indian railways.

I save a lot too in time and money. The airport is an hour’s drive from home, will have to check in at least an hour before and then at the destination, I’ve to pay for the cab for another hour’s drive. The total cost of one way travel between Bombay – Delhi will be about Rs.8500/-. By train, it costs me just one-fourth of that. Given that there is a recession around and the stock markets are scraping at the bottom, the savings don’t hurt at all!

As I see it, there’s one sure way how airlines can get back into black – “shut down”!

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Mallya's Spyker deal is not just hype and glory

Not many would have sensed the spirit behind Vijay Mallya’s co-investment in Skyper, a Formula1 team. Knowing his penchant for high life and fast cars, may be it just got swept aside as just another Mallya indulgence.

Yet it appears the deal between Vijay Mallya - Chairman and CEO of Toyota sponsor Kingfisher Airlines – and Dutch entrepreneur Michiel Mol - Spyker’s Formula One Director might just make incredible business sense.

Here’s to why. It might just give a uniquely high-impact advertising forum by providing sustained brand visibility for the 90-odd minutes of a race. Importantly, given the increasingly stringent limits in Europe on liquor and tobacco advertising — two significant Formula 1 income-earners — the sport is making inroads into Asia. China and Bahrain are recent entrants to the calendar, Singapore follows next year and, who knows, it may be India after that (Mr Mallya heads the local racing body). These will provide Mr Mallya with an entrée into high-value Asian markets to grow his airline and liquor businesses.

Especially after Narain Karthikeyan raised the profile of Formula One racing in India when he became the first Indian to compete in a Grand Prix with Jordan in 2005. Now Mallya believes his purchasing Spyker could boost it still further. With a local hero behind the wheels, the Indian viewership also might shoot up. If anything, that could be a bonus of sorts.

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Consolidation in Indian skies - putting the cart before the horse ?

The frenetic activity in India’s fledgling airline industry [Jet-Sahara, Kingfisher-Air Deccan, Air India-Indian] intrigues me no end. I normally am tempted to go by the general opinion of investors across the world about this industry, which in summation is that - a profitable airline is a dysfunctional one.

There’s this favorite airline industry stat, offered up by a recent Bloomberg article:

Historical profits: $18 billion
Historical losses: $32 billion

Internationally, the performance of aviation industry has been characterised by boom and bust cycles with a period of robust growth in operations and profits giving way to losses and an inevitable search towards consolidation. This is in the very nature of the cost structure of airline operations where fixed costs such as aircraft lease rentals, depreciation and staff costs could be as high as 50 per cent of sales. Even a marginal decline in traffic volume or a nominal addition to capacity arising from the entry of new players can undermine the viability of incumbent operators. The current wave of consolidation sweeping the Indian skies may appear to be in accord with the global trend, but is actually different in one respect. The consolidation is happening even before the industry has achieved a state of stable and orderly growth (and hence the title). The sector was opened to private competition, just a few years back. The period since then has witnessed one of the most exceptional record of buoyancy in national prosperity. In the event, the new entrants can perhaps be pardoned for viewing the future with an optimism that in hindsight may not only be regarded as excessive but did not prepare them to withstand the pressures of the market place.

Get this perspective from none other than legendary investor Warren Buffett:

"If I'd been at Kitty Hawk in 1903 when Orville Wright took off, I would have been farsighted enough, and public-spirited enough -- I owed this to future capitalists -- to shoot him down."

Seems the airlines are in bad need of a visit from the business model doctor.

It seems Vijay Mallya and Naresh Goel have different ideas. Well, you can argue there are millions of Indians that haven’t had their maiden flight experience as yet, who would love to take to the skies if the fares are affordable. How easy a task is that - coming to think of soaring oil prices, high lease rentals, wage inflation, shortage of pilots and trained in-flight, maintenance and repair crew.

Well, who am I to say that? John M Keynes quote captures it best as he says -

“A large portion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than on mathematical expectation…If animal spirits are dimmed and the spontaneous optimism falters, leaving us to depend on nothing but mathematical expectation, enterprise will fade and die.”

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Won't you join me in raising a toast to that ?

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"Simplifly"

Capt.G.R.Gopinath, Founder & CEO of Air Deccan, India’s low cost carrier (LCC) is a smart man.

Just as everyone was about to write it off as a sick airline headed for its grave, yesterday this wiry ex-soldier of Indian army quietly palmed off a 26% controlling stake to Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines for Rs.5.50 billion ($137.5 m) – Rs.155 per share (IPO was at Rs.150/- a share). In the process getting a return of almost 6 times his original investment of about Rs.930 m ( $ 23.25 m). As per the deal terms, he will continue as Chairman of the Company. The company had a last quarter loss of Rs.2.21 billion ($55.25 m) and its EPS is a cool negative figure. Coming to think of it, the strategy is fairly simplistic and well executed - go float a capital intensive business, shake down the whole market by suicidal pricing, break the back of existing established players almost forcing them either to buy you out (to stop bleeding price cuts threatening their very existence !) or to go out of business and eventually sell it to one of them and make 6 x returns...ain't that smart...?

Now to a little abstraction. Remember the Captain did it in India, a hotbed of spirituality where your good karma never goes unblessed or unrewarded. True to his words, he made air travel affordable for many a cost-conscious, VFM minded people (not necessarily poor) and he can safely count on all of their blessings. In particular, of those who could make it only because Deccan made it affordable for them, at real low cost – “Simplifly” goes its slogan – without a worry and no frills.

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Now with $137 million in his pocket, in all probabilities, this Captain would want to do more of good Karma. Unless he makes it clear, every industry has reason to worry !
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