From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, Indian Airlines had to take permission of the Gujarat High Court every time it wanted to revise airfares, recalls T V Dorairaj, retired general manager. This was due to a writ petition by consumer activist Manubhai Shah.
The life of air passengers was different in the 1970s. There were only two airlines - Air India (only on foreign routes) and Indian Airlines (monopoly over domestic routes) - and fares were fixed, irrespective of when you bought tickets.
"Passengers booked in advance for seat availability, bu not for the price. The ticket price remained the same whether you booked one day before travel or a month earlier," says Devesh Agarwal, editor of aviation blog Bangalore Aviation.
Formed in 1953 after the merger of eight private airlines, Indian Airlines largely flew Dakota planes and because of range restriction, it did hop flights between two destinations. Caravelle, its first jet aircraft, was introduced in 1965. It was in the 1970s that Indian Airlines inducted its first Boeing 737.
Air India inducted its first jet (Boeing 707) in 1960 and two years later, became the first all-jet airline in the world. The Boeing 747 was introduced in the Air India fleet in 1971, enabling a non-stop Mumbai-London flight.
Very few flights, fixed fares and virtually non-existent airport security, manual ticketing and check-in processes and absence of loyalty programmes were the order of the day.
Reservation and check-in processes were automated in 1980s. Until then, ticketing was manual and it could take up to 24 hours for travel agents to confirm bookings and issue tickets. This became simpler in the 1990s when the airline global distribution system (GDS) was launched. This allowed agents access to inventories of multiple airlines.
08/02/15 Aneesh Phadnis/Business Standard
The life of air passengers was different in the 1970s. There were only two airlines - Air India (only on foreign routes) and Indian Airlines (monopoly over domestic routes) - and fares were fixed, irrespective of when you bought tickets.
"Passengers booked in advance for seat availability, bu not for the price. The ticket price remained the same whether you booked one day before travel or a month earlier," says Devesh Agarwal, editor of aviation blog Bangalore Aviation.
Formed in 1953 after the merger of eight private airlines, Indian Airlines largely flew Dakota planes and because of range restriction, it did hop flights between two destinations. Caravelle, its first jet aircraft, was introduced in 1965. It was in the 1970s that Indian Airlines inducted its first Boeing 737.
Air India inducted its first jet (Boeing 707) in 1960 and two years later, became the first all-jet airline in the world. The Boeing 747 was introduced in the Air India fleet in 1971, enabling a non-stop Mumbai-London flight.
Very few flights, fixed fares and virtually non-existent airport security, manual ticketing and check-in processes and absence of loyalty programmes were the order of the day.
Reservation and check-in processes were automated in 1980s. Until then, ticketing was manual and it could take up to 24 hours for travel agents to confirm bookings and issue tickets. This became simpler in the 1990s when the airline global distribution system (GDS) was launched. This allowed agents access to inventories of multiple airlines.
08/02/15 Aneesh Phadnis/Business Standard
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