39% flyers willing to switch to airlines that offer free meals, but cost more: ixigo survey

An ixigo survey studying flight booking trends shows that if one doesn’t take air fares into consideration, 39% flyers would choose an airline that serves free in-flight meals. In addition to this, other important factors impacting choice of airline when flying were on-time performance (26%), checked-in luggage allowance (16%) and in-flight comfort (11%).
Of the 8455 online bookers who took part in the survey, 71% prefer to book their air tickets through online travel agencies such as Makemytrip, Cleartrip, Yatra while 29% prefered to book directly with airlines.



Over 22% of travellers surveyed had used meta-search engines such as ixigo to book on airline websites and OTAs. App usage (56%) surpasses website usage (44%), as more and more people choose to make bookings on the go. While most people still prefer booking their flights & hotels seperately, 32% of the people now opt to book a complete package in one go to save on time & effort.


ixigo CEO and Co-Founder, Aloke Bajpai said: "We were rather intrigued by the findings of our survey. While the narrative of flight bookings in India is largely around low fares and discounts, free meals were rated one of the most important factors for choice of airlines. As per the data we gathered, travellers would switch to airlines such as Jet Airways, Vistara and Air India (that offer free in-flight meals) if the fares were even upto 8% higher than low-cost carriers such as Indigo and Air Asia. With the evolution of the air travel market, a larger than anticipated number of evolved travellers are now valuing comfort over price; 22% of the people surveyed are willing to pay extra for add on services such as seat selection, excess baggage, priority boarding, lounge access, food etc."