While the new airport of Bangalore was opened, there was lot of noise being made by all the media picking up the distance as a key negative factor discarding the infrastructure facilities available aside. However there was a business family — Om group, which was eyeing an opportunity at this noise — Ajay Nemani and his father Om Prakash Nemani, founders of Airlift, an airport transfer service company. The airport transfers will become very expensive for the passengers as airport is very far from the city. While there are other cab services in Bangalore, what Nemani tries to bring in is the extra services at the half price. “We feel that the normal city cab service from the city to the airport will cost about 750/- to 1000/- one way. Our service has been priced at Rs. 300/- one way and moreover return journey for to and from the airport will be Rs. 450/- per person. That is nearly 70 percent saving on the airport transfers vis-à-vis a regular city cab,” says Maqsood Ahmed, Marketing Manager.

Within very short period the company’s launch on May 24th, Ahmed feels a good traction for the company’s services. Airlift with its 32 Toyota Innovas will pick up the customers from the Airlift pickup points and drop them to the airport and vice versa bring them to the city from the airport. Its pretty interesting how company tries to promote its services - make use of the travel time productive. All the vehicles will be 6 seat air conditioned with individual bucket seats for all five passengers, LCD screen on each passenger seat for personalized entertainment system with five channels and WiFi enabled for passengers to browse the internet on the screens and as well as with their laptops.

Moreover the vehicle can be tracked by GPS system to ensure efficient on time services and tracking every vehicle to make sure of complete security of passengers. However, looking at the vehicles facilities that Airlift highlights, it reminds me of the Auto Expo 2008, where in Ashok Leyland has unveiled a prototype of their new series of bus to compete with Volvo with similar features that Airlift’s vehicles offers. Moreover, the BMTC has already given orders to purchase these new buses. Probably Nemani might have adopted the idea and might have been motivated to package technology as well as logistics to position the company in the market.

Right now, while the government has not made much infrastructure developments in Bangalore, it makes sense for the passenger to utilize the Airlift service through www.airliftonline.com. But, the day when Bangalore has Metro and other facilities to reach the Airport faster, the founders has to think about whether it would be the dawn or dusk of the company. Probably Nemani might be envisioning this. Anyway witnessing good traction, Airlift is scaling up its customer care and are also partnering for some other services too.