Category Archives: Aviation

Air India deploys AI-powered agent ‘Maharaja’ to answer customer queries

Air India has become the world’s first airline to have successfully deployed a Generative AI virtual agent, called ‘Maharaja’, powered by Azure OpenAI service. It has successfully answered over half a million customer queries since its pilot launch in March 2023, and it today manages over 6,000 queries a day in four languages.

Air India’s Maharaja AI Agent manages an extensive spectrum of customer queries across 1,300 areas related to flight status, baggage allowances, packing restrictions, check-in, frequent flyer awards, airport lounge access, flight changes, refunds and more.

To meet the needs of guests around the world, Maharaja speaks four languages: Hindi, English, French, and German. Of the 6,000-plus questions received each day, over 80% are successfully answered in seconds. About 15% of customer queries today require additional assistance, and Maharaja recognises this automatically and orchestrates a seamless handoff to Air India’s contact centre agents.

Dr. Satya Ramaswamy, Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Air India, said, “We are dedicated to providing the best possible service and experience to our valued guests across channels. We also want to be very responsive to their changing preferences. After the emergence of Large Language Model driven Generative AI capabilities, we are increasingly seeing a definitive shift in guest preferences to use chat interactions to get the information and support they need quickly and directly as compared to browsing several web pages.”

“We have used several patent-pending innovations in our AI agent Maharaja with a combination of traditional machine learning techniques and the latest in Generative AI to provide a pleasing and effective experience for our customers. Many more innovations are in the pipeline and will be made live in the months to come.”

“We are pleased to see Air India’s successful deployment of their AI-powered agent, Maharaja, and the use of Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to provide a personalized and relevant customer experience. We believe that this is the beginning of a new era of customer service, and we look forward to seeing more organizations use the power of Generative AI and our AI-optimised Azure cloud to provide a seamless and efficient customer experience,” said Marco Casalaina,
Vice President, AI Platform, Microsoft.

Leveraging the generative AI technology to the full extent, Air India uses ChatGPT to analyse even some complex questions it may not be able to immediately answer to improve customer experience in later interactions. This has allowed Air India’s newest customer service channel to progressively learn and improve, becoming more attuned to natural language. Air India has employed a strategy that involves blending of multiple traditional machine learning techniques alongside Generative AI to provide a compelling consumer-grade experience. Air India has also established safeguards to prevent biased or harmful language from infiltrating its conversational AI system.

Unlike rule-based or keyword-based chatbots, Generative AI solutions understand the intent and context of a user’s query and generate a natural and coherent reply. This enhances user experience and satisfaction, while reducing the need for human intervention. It also helps to automate repetitive and mundane tasks, such as booking, cancellation, confirmation, etc., and free up bandwidth for human agents to focus on more complex and value-adding interactions.

In the coming months, Air India plans to launch a host of sophisticated features, driven by patent-pending technologies. This includes a novel user experience that changes the way customers interact with AI agents with a combination of textual and graphical interactions that can potentially further speed up customer interactions. Some of these innovations have been incubated for more than 2 years. Air India also plans to enhance the current AI agent with data-driven deep-personalisation capabilities that will elevate the technology to that of a reliable personal assistant for all air travel needs. The capabilities of the AI agent will include travel inspiration and effortless booking experiences. Support for more Indian languages is also in the works.

Air India partners with WorldTicket to offer Deutsche Bahn bookings across 5,600 stations

Air India has entered an intermodal interline agreement with WorldTicket, the exclusive distributor for Europe’s largest railway operator, Deutsche Bahn.

The collaboration enables Air India guests to travel on a single intermodal ticket beyond Frankfurt with convenient train connections to or from other cities and towns across Germany, including those without airports, on Deutsche Bahn. This lets travellers to connect to and from over 5,600 train stations in Germany on the Deutsche Bahn network. Travellers can also take train connections on Deutsche Bahn to and from Amsterdam, Brussels, and Zurich via Air India’s Frankfurt gateway.

WorldTicket is an IATA travel partner with its own AOC-holding airline, FlexFlight, bearing designator code W2, thus making intermodal journeys on a single ticket possible.

The partnership with WorldTicket for Deutsche Bahn also allows Air India guests to enjoy the benefit of the same baggage allowance on the rail routes as offered by Air India on its own flights.
Nipun Aggarwal, Chief Commercial & Transformation Officer, Air India, said, “While we continue to expand our own route network globally, such partnerships help us to provide an extended network to our guests, and make journeys to their final destinations more convenient. We observe substantial passenger traffic on our Frankfurt flights that further connects to and from other German cities and towns, and this partnership addresses the needs of an increasing number of such guests. We are delighted to be working with WorldTicket and Deutsche Bahn in this effort.”
Air India recently entered another similar intermodal partnership to provide guests easy access to an extensive network of rail and bus operators in the UK, Italy, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

Currently, intermodal tickets with Air India are available for booking through travel agents globally. The airline also plans to extend the facility to its own sales channels progressively.

 

IndiGo to double its fleet size by 2030

India’s largest carrier by market share, IndiGo is looking to double its fleet by 2030. Having ordered for around 970 planes, the airline is set to receive one aircraft per week (50 aircraft) over the next year, IndiGo’s chief executive officer Pieter Elbers said.

The airline, which added six new destinations in the last quarter, plans to start flights to Bali (Indonesia) and Medina (Saudi Arabia) in the upcoming quarter (Q3FY24) as part of its international expansion plans. “Q2 was when internationalisation came to fruition. We will continue our internationalisation,” Elbers said, adding that the airline is currently operating around 500 routes, including over 100 international.

Of its massive orderbook the airline is awaiting the delivery of the Airbus A321XLRs (extra long range) aircraft that will begin joining its fleet late in 2024 to fly non-stop flights (in the duration of up to 7-8 hours) from India to Athens and Seoul, Elbers revealed.

In fact, going forward, the focus of the airline is not just to connect international destinations out of metros, but also other parts of the country (read tier-II cities). “It (A321XLRs) will not only stretch our reach further into Asia and Europe but also within India itself,” Elbers said.

IndiGo, which recently signed a codeshare partnership with UK flag carrier British Airways, is now looking to expand its codeshare with the Australian flag carrier Qantas. It has been scouting for more global partners to spread its wings to destinations across the globe, already having in place codeshare partnerships with Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, Qantas, Virgin Atlantic, KLM, American Airlines and Air France.

In the quarter ended September, Indigo posted a net profit of INR 189 crore, marking a 28% growth year-on-year. It expects to close the next quarter at 25% YoY growth moderated by the growth it saw in last year’s third quarter. This was a profitable Q2 after five years, which traditionally is considered a weaker quarter in the airline business.

IndiGo is also “well on track” to achieve the target of carrying 100 million passengers this financial year, Elbers said.  (Source Deccan Herald)

Air India suspends Tel Aviv flights till Nov 30

Air India has suspended its scheduled flights to Tel Aviv till November 30 amid the tensions between Israel and Hamas.

The airline has not operated a scheduled flight to and from Tel Aviv since October 7.

An airline spokesperson on Sunday said flights to Tel Aviv have been suspended till November 30.

Normally, the full-service carrier operates five weekly flights to Tel Aviv from the national capital. The service is on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

Last month, the airline operated a few chartered flights to Tel Aviv from the national capital under the government’s Operation Ajay to bring back Indians who wished to come back from Israel against the backdrop of the escalating conflict.

Go First’s lenders not in favour of releasing more funds to the airline

Lenders to Go First are not in favour of releasing additional funding to the grounded airline, given its legal troubles with lessors and complexities related to changes in the bankruptcy law, two banking sources told Reuters on Monday.

Go First’s lenders, which include the Central Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, IDBI Bank and Deutsche Bank, had in-principally approved funding of INR 4.50 billion in June to resume operations and restart the airline.

“When the funding was approved, there was some visibility about the airline restarting operations,” the banker said.
“Now the situation is quite different and the future is bleak,” said a banker with a state-run bank that has exposure to Go First.

None of the sources wished to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The Committee of Creditors (CoC) of Go First met earlier in the day, the sources said.

Go First filed for bankruptcy in May but its lessors were blocked from repossessing planes due to a moratorium imposed by Indian courts.

India, however, last month amended its insolvency law, potentially paving the way for lessors to take back their planes.

“If Jindal Power does not submit a bid, bankers will initiate discussions about liquidation,” the banker said, commenting on an expression of interest Go First received from Jindal Power Ltd on Oct. 12.

The last day to submit bids is November 21, both the sources said, adding that lenders will be seeking a procedural 90-day extension to complete the airline’s resolution process. (Source: Reuters)

Air India to add over 400 weekly flights across network until March 2024

Air India intents to add more than 400 weekly flights to its domestic and international route network until March 2024, as part of the Winter Schedule ’23.

On the back of expected new aircraft deliveries over the next six months, Air India aims to strengthen its domestic India network by adding more than 200 weekly flights on several routes touching major Indian cities such as Mumbai and Delhi. On its international route network, the carrier would operate over 200 weekly flights, of which over 80 weekly flights have already been added. Air India has plans to add four new international destinations to its network, which will be announced in due course.

At the onset of the Winter Schedule ’23, the airline has ramped up frequency by 25x weekly flights (each way) on eight international routes across points in Southeast Asia, United States, and Europe. This includes the weekly frequencies on Mumbai-Singapore increasing from 7x to 13x, Delhi-Bangkok from 7x to 14x, Delhi-Dhaka from 7x to 12x, Delhi-Newark (New Jersey) from 3x to 4x, Delhi-San Francisco from 10x to 11x, Delhi-Washington D.C. from 3x to 4x, Delhi-Copenhagen from 3x to 4x, Delhi-Milan from 4x to 5x, Mumbai-Doha from 7x to 9x.

Air India has also opened flights on four new routes, including Bengaluru-Singapore, Kochi-Doha, Kolkata-Bangkok, and Mumbai-Melbourne.

Campbell Wilson, CEO and MD, Air India, said, “While modernising our fleet and introducing new products and services is a top priority in Air India’s ongoing transformation journey, we are equally focused on densifying and expanding our route network to capture the rapidly growing demand in the market. The next few months are exciting for Air India and our guests, indeed.”

Between now and March 2024, Air India expects to induct over 30 widebody and narrowbody aircraft to its fleet, including six A350s, four B777s and 20 A320neos.