Air India has plans to rebrand its loyalty program, and I quite like the name change…
In this post:
Air India Flying Returns will become Maharaja Club
In recent years, Air India has been privatized, and the company’s owners are trying to reinvent the airline, and bring back its former glory. While there are many changes happening at the airline, one significant milestone that’s coming up is Vistara being integrated into Air India.
Coinciding with this development, Air India has announced plans to rebrand its loyalty program. Currently Air India’s loyalty program is known as Flying Returns, while Vistara’s loyalty program is known as Club Vistara.
The plan is eventually for the combined loyalty program of the two airlines to be rebranded as Maharaja Club. The timeline for this rebranding remains to be seen.
The Air India Flying Returns program was overhauled several months back, so the transition to Maharaja Club might be more about branding rather than an overhaul of how the program works. Then again, some aspects of Vistara’s program may eventually be integrated as well.
I think this is a pretty cool rebranding
Purely from a marketing perspective, I think transiting from Flying Returns to Maharaja Club is quite positive. Flying Returns could be a loyalty program belonging to any airline, and there’s nothing Indian about it, really.
With Air India’s transformation, we know the airline is heavily trying to lean into its roots. For example, Air India recently released a new boarding track, which is fun and distinctive. It’s even called “India Takes Flight,” reflecting how the song is uniquely Indian.
Maharaja Club is also much more uniquely Indian, and I think that’s a good thing. Air India has used the maharaja as its mascot for decades, but even that has been modernized, in a very cool way.
Bottom line
Air India plans to rebrand its loyalty program, as it’ll transition from Flying Returns to Maharaja Club. While the exact timeline remains to be seen, this is intended to coincide with the Vistara brand being merged into the Air India brand. I wouldn’t expect much change in benefits, though, given the recent overhaul of the Flying Returns program.
Maharaja Club is a more distinctive loyalty program name, so I’m a fan!
What do you make of Air India rebranding its loyalty program?
Good for the 'new' Air India that they actually are renewing their ffp as well. It would be even better to see what the conditions of the new club will be like, what the conditions and thresholds for levels and so will be. Is the new name just a result of the refurbishing of the old program or will there be several more substantial changes now that Vistara gets integrated? It's India, it's Air India,...
Good for the 'new' Air India that they actually are renewing their ffp as well. It would be even better to see what the conditions of the new club will be like, what the conditions and thresholds for levels and so will be. Is the new name just a result of the refurbishing of the old program or will there be several more substantial changes now that Vistara gets integrated? It's India, it's Air India, so anything can be expected, except the expected. It'd be fun to follow developments here.
Do you think Air India will ever become a transfer partner for a major credit card in the US?
Their airport lounges are already called maharaja. And they are not spectacular. I would prefer to hang out in a Hudson news instead of those lounges
The name only reinforce how sexist the world still is.
Why is that? It's just a name referring to royalty, really, as mahaj means 'great' and 'raj' comes from ruler (often via the form of 'king'). 'magnus' and 'rex' in Latin form. In other words: airline nobility or royalty, the highly regarded chosen ones that get special treatment. A fitting name for the DYKWIA-community.
Now if we're looking at 'kings', we can see that many kings in the world actually were females. King Anna, queen...
Why is that? It's just a name referring to royalty, really, as mahaj means 'great' and 'raj' comes from ruler (often via the form of 'king'). 'magnus' and 'rex' in Latin form. In other words: airline nobility or royalty, the highly regarded chosen ones that get special treatment. A fitting name for the DYKWIA-community.
Now if we're looking at 'kings', we can see that many kings in the world actually were females. King Anna, queen of Poland, Beatrix and her mother Juliana and again her mother Wilhelmina in The Netherlands were technically king by title while going on the 'queen' title in daily life. There are plenty more examples where the constitutional vacancy 'king' is carried by any suitable heir to a throne, male or female (or anything else). Especially in a modern world, lots of titles have been equalized as to eradicate any difference between males and females and make them more neutral, also because of the rise of the social construct of having several more genders around and being inclusive to those. 'King' can just be one of them, as emancipation works in every direction: the goal should be equality for all, not suppression of males.
It's not sexist until you make it so by being a drama queen about it. Drama queen? No drama king? That's sexist!
ps. Has it ever occurred to you that every thought you have is discriminating, sexist and suppressive in some way? That's first of all because the language you think in is gendered. The hypothesis of Sapir and Whorf actually points out the overlaying issue here: our worldview and thoughts are limited and shaped by the language we think in. Great food for thought, isn't it?
Two comments :
1) The name sounds like an adult entertainment venue. In fact a google search throws up a few NSFW links with that name.
2) Air India already had a Maharaja Club back in the 1990s as an invitation-only corporate leaders thingy (before they had a loyalty program!).
Patiently awaiting the fan art of Maharaja hitching a ride on Sir Turtle.