Can Indian airline players benefit from some of the successful best practices implemented in other geographies? To this question, a ready reference that Pankaj Narayan Pandit, Head-Airlines Practice, Sonata Software Ltd, makes is to the Southwest Airlines, US, which has pioneered a low-cost model.

Southwest has the distinction of being the only airline that is consistently profitable for the last 38 years, he mentions during the course of a recent telephonic conversation with Business Line. “Airlines such as Air Asia have successfully adopted Southwest model in Asia. By zealously reducing every cost item, low-cost carriers (LCCs) have emerged with operating costs that are 40-50 per cent lower than traditional airlines.”