Rang7, the OTA from Spicejet, IndiGo and Kingfisher that was launched in the month of May, 2009 (on the lines of Orbitz) has been shutdown.
The idea behind Rang7 was that these airlines will team up and reduce agency cost (Indian carriers spend close to Rs. 200 Crore in distribution cost, given away to travel agents and travel portals such as Makemytrip, Yatra and Cleartrip.com) as well as distribution cost.
The portal raised an investment of approximately $3 Million and participating airlines owned an equity stake in the portal. Infact, we also asked Cleartrip and iXiGo on their views and the interview is a must read, if you want to understand the OTA industry.
We earlier mentioned the confusion over the identity, and airlines decision to not participate in this venture; but the meat of the matter is that the portal has been shutdown.
A win for OTAs? or a case of bad takeoff or vaporware in planning?
For me what i know is 2 things
1) book a ticket in MMT, YATRA, Clear Trip etc etc
2) Go to IXIGO and get redirected to the specific airling booking page and book the ticket
from 1 and 2 my core point is that i book my ticket but the difference is the amount because MMT and other guys add some 100 or 200/- of commission to the original price and show them on screen and where in ixigo we see the original price of the ticket
and coming to Rang7 i didnt heard about it from its inauguration and i just heard about its closure and i tried to view the page but no page opened on the screen, so i hardly believe that there is no 3 rd point other than the 1st and 2nd that i mentioned above
Thanks & Regards
Sai Pothuri
why did they shut down? do you have any insider info on the reason why this did not take off. at the time, this seemed like a good idea. but even i did not get to see the site. now it shows a blank page.
maybe other OTAs know why?
This is very strange. When the market is good, backed by deep pockets and shutting down in less than a year is quite bewildering. Do you think rang7 has been talked out of the concept in the greater interest by OTAs ?
I think the big three OTA’s (MakeMyTrip, Cleatrip, and Yatra) who now control more than 40% of the Indian Air Ticket market have enough clout to “discourage” the weakly organised Airlines from such tactics as Rang7.
Good for them in succeeding to rub down Rang7 before it made it big!! There is no reason why with millions spent to build their brands, that OTAs shouldn’t play tough with the Airlines.