Demand for airport lounges to go up
Liberatha Peter Kallat, CMD, Dreamfolks Services, talks about the impact of resumption of international commercial flights on airport services. She said it will naturally increase passenger footfalls at airports, thus resulting in more travellers opting f
DreamFolks Services is India’s largest airport service aggregator facilitating an enhanced airport experience to passengers. “Since we started in 2013, we have built a strong position in the airport services segment. Our technology platform integrates global card networks, credit card and debit card issuers, corporate clients and others with airport lounge operators and other airport related service providers seamlessly,” said Liberatha Peter Kallat, Chairperson and Managing Director, Dreamfolks Services.
“This is done by our proprietary technology platform, which offers solutions through omni channels such as issuer card/ digital card/ DreamFolks card/ mobile app-based access, tracking live benefits on each card. This is one of the key elements that enables our clients to provide value added
services to their end customers as a part of their customer engagement and loyalty management programmes,” she added.
Resumption of flights
Commenting on the resumption of commercial flights, Kallat said, “With international commercial flights resuming, there will be an increase in airport footfalls and travelling passengers. This will naturally result in more travellers opting for lounge and other airport services. Since most airport lounges have been reopened, there will be an increase in business for operators. This will accelerate growth in the lounge and airport services industries, which will return to normal in a relatively short period of time.”
New developments
Speaking about new offerings and developments, Kallat said, “We cover 100 per cent of the 50 lounges operating in India in all the major cities. In addition, we have an exclusive arrangement for cardbased transactions at 11 lounges across 10 airports in India, which is about 22 per cent of domestic lounges for India issued credit and debit cards. On new airports, there are about 125 operational airports in the country, which are expected to increase to 295 by 2040. The Indian government plans to spend around ` 1 lakh crore to set up new airports in India.”
Factors driving growth
The airport lounge access market in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of 43.11 per cent by 2030 to ` 5861.9 crore from ` 358.9 crore in 2022. “There are many drivers of growth. First, the number of passengers using air travel is growing. Passengers travelling by air increased from approximately 99 million in CY 2015 to 167 million in CY 2019. Second, the increase in airport lounge usage by passengers is rising. We believe that ease of travel is being considered as an integral element of the airport experience, and lounges are a key component of the airport experience. The number of passengers availing lounge facilities has increased from 5.1 million in 2018 to 7.5 million in 2020,” she said. “We believe DreamFolks’ coverage of lounges across
Passengers travelling by air increased from 99 million in CY 2015 to 167 million in CY 2019
Indian airports coupled with our technology platform should see the demand continue for our services,” she added.