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The new A350 fleet, now flying to London and New York, scored an impressive NPS of 56.
With 1,200+ daily flights and 2 lakh customers, Air India is evaluated on hundreds of touchpoints globally every single day. (File photo)
For the FY2024-25, Air India has improved its customer experience significantly by nearly 20 points compared to the previous years.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a widely-used customer satisfaction metric to measure customer loyalty and the likely hood of referring the business to others. On the domestic side, the NPS is 34, more than doubling in comparison to the previous year.
The newly inducted A350 fleet, now covering prime routes such as London & New York City, achieved an NPS of 56, with scores in premium classes crossing 70, reiterating the impact that new aircraft in the fleet has on the customer experience and feedback, and recognizing the focus the company is drawing to refresh its entire fleet.
“The progress is a result of enhanced processes, adherence to guidelines, improved customer handling and query resolution, the introduction of Vista Stream and WiFi services with modern entertainment & content options, a brand-new inflight product like crockery & soft furnishing, vibrant new crew uniforms, and overall improvement in condition of aircraft,” said a senior official, Air India.
With over 1,200 daily flights and 2,00,000 customers, Air India is evaluated at hundreds of global touchpoints. The company has thousands of customers assess both functional and intangible attributes daily, covering hard and soft products and human and technological interactions. While the NPS score for business class improved by 1.5 times, the economy class has registered a sixfold increase.
During the year, Air India also merged its operations with Vistara. With the merger, Air India has rolled out Vistara’s F&B services across the entire network. Air India’s domestic punctuality and NPS now exceed Vistara’s past performance.
Air India has been focussing on improvements in punctuality, seating, F&B services, technology, frontline training, and overall service quality. It introduced an industry-leading Gen-AI chatbot last year.
EZBooking, an AI-driven feature, which enables instant reservations via natural-language requests was also introduced. It also emerged as the first Indian airline to offer inflight Wi-Fi on domestic routes.
The airline has also undertaken large-scale training programs for airport, onboard, and call-center staff trying to embed new service standards and customer-centric mindsets. It is no surprise that over the last year, the company has received widely positive reviews on social media from discerning customers. [Over 15000 on Twitter alone]
“The silent transformation that the airline has been undertaking is becoming more visible to the customers and is being experienced increasingly. The improvement in the NPS is a sign that change is palpable and augurs well for the brand in the coming years,” said the executive quote above.
A Journey of last 3 years – The below comparative analysis demarcates the journey of the airline and the transformation it underwent to improve the different aspects of customer service. The last 3 years have witnessed a substantial improvement in the services and experience of flying that customer had with Air India.
From an overhauled inflight entertainment backed with major technological upgrades to an exhaustive content library, Air India’s tech enhancements set new standards of deployment in aviation sector providing truly delightful travel experiences to global audience.
Inflight Entertainment
The new Air India experience available on brand new A350 aircraft, operating from Delhi to London and New York, offers latest-generation inflight entertainment system.
- All seats across cabins on the A350 come with the latest-generation Panasonic eX3 in-flight entertainment (IFE) system and HD screens that offer more than 3,500 hours of entertainment content across formats and genres, including 1400 hours of movies, 800 hours of TV, and 1500 hours of audio. Travellers can choose from over 250 Indian movies and 76 Indian regional movies in eight languages, more than 200 Hollywood movies, including BAFTA and Oscars-winning titles, and international cinema spanning 14 languages. The exclusively programmed Air India Radio features a music collection of 800 choices from every genre and over 60 curated playlists.
- Till other aircraft are retrofitted to offer the new Air India experience, the airline launched the Vista Stream service across the existing widebody and narrowbody aircraft to enable customers to seamlessly stream over 2,000 hours of content on their personal electronic devices (iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS devices).
Food and Beverage
Air India rolled out Vistara’s catering across the Air India network
- Revamped menus have been created keeping the dietary requirements of customers in mind and their evolving tastes
- Special menus/desserts are now being served on board on festivals, holidays, keeping customer choices at the core
- The Vista Verve soft product which includes cutlery, chinaware, soft furnishings, sleepwear etc. has now been successfully implemented across 39 international stations, with Tel Aviv, Tokyo Haneda, and Incheon scheduled for completion this month. This rollout will bring consistent premium service standardization across our entire international network.
Cabin Interiors
Air India has embarked on a fleet-wide cabin upgradation program. A staggering USD 400 million spends are underway with four legacy Airbus A320 already sporting the new look and feel of the brand.
These revamped aircraft feature a modern three-class configuration – eight luxurious business seats, 24 comfortable premium economy seats with extra legroom and 132 economy seats.
The widebody fleet is underdoing a transformation. With new interior panels lavatories, seats, carpets and curtains in Boeing B777s, the B787s are set for a full retrofit.
Net Promotor Score
- With the several changes we have made to our product, including F&B, inflight entertainment options, as of March 2025, the overall NPS was up 46 points, moving from ‘-19’ to ‘+25’.
- The newly inducted A350 has an NPS of around 60, demonstrating Air India’s strong commitment to providing an exceptional customer experience and highlighting the success of our transformation efforts.
- Scores for our business class improved by approximately 1.5 times, while economy class scores saw a six-fold increase.
Samreen Pall, Senior Sub-Editor at News18, is a Computer Science graduate but a writer at heart, Samreen has one motto that she swears by: ‘Everything is dull and useless if it has no drama in it.’ This motto c…Read More
Samreen Pall, Senior Sub-Editor at News18, is a Computer Science graduate but a writer at heart, Samreen has one motto that she swears by: ‘Everything is dull and useless if it has no drama in it.’ This motto c… Read More
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