Question And Answer Component: Fill & Download for Free

Of course. Here is the A350 wearing its sleeping mask, because the sunlight is too dazzling for some rest:Here is the A350 wide awake:No mask needed.I’m just kidding, like the rest of the airplanes, this plane needs no rest. No plane needs rest, just gas ✈Image credit: Airbus and aero[.]deThe answer above was a joke answer. To really address the question:Yes. Planes get to “rest” during regular maintenance on the engines, fuselage, wings, tires and other structural components. Certain types of maintenance checks can take weeks, and even months to complete.In addition, a commenter has mentioned that, sometimes, an aircraft must be given some resting time after landing, so its wheel brakes can cool down. This is to prolong the lifespan of the brakes, and ensure they remain effective in case of a rejected takeoff later on.Airlines combat this problem by using the engines’ thrust reversers during landing. They can help alleviate stress on the wheel brakes, meaning less braking power is needed from the wheel brakes, and thus reducing the heat generated. This procedure is commonly used when planes have limited turnaround time, such as during layovers. In this case, the planes get little rest in between flights.

These are the things you should attempt to learn before accepting a product management role. Some an employer will answer directly. Others you'll have to learn by asking other current or former employees at the company or taking signals from the company's communications:Is this product strategic? Strategic products get more resources, have higher visibility, and are less likely to be scrapped. They also come with added pressure to succeed, and are quicker to eject team members who aren't successful.Is this product critical in helping the company win (i.e. a profit center), or is it a cost center? This is another way to ask whether a product is strategic. If you find product/market fit in a profit center the company will want to pour energy and resources into that area. If you do a great job leading a product in a cost center, that will often mean that you're performing the same level of service with fewer resources.Who owns the overall product, and what is their history at the company? Look at the LinkedIn profile of the overall product leader. Do they appear to be a rising star? Have they been at the company for several years? If they're new to the company then they're likely still going through a calibration phase, and may not have yet earned the trust of executives.Who will be the hiring manager, and what is their history at the company? Same questions as above. A hiring manager who has been at the company longer is more likely to know how to grow product manager's within the company or get them promoted.Who was responsible for product management for this product in the past, and why aren't they there any longer? Has this product spit out other product managers, or did previous PM's leave for other reasons. Talk to the former PM if possible.Who is responsible for product management now for this product? You'll want to find out if there is an existing product management org already or not. If you're the first product manager, you'll want to know if the company is hiring others on the same product. Working within a PM org has advantages. You'll ramp up more quickly and have some existing processes that you can leverage. You'll also get better mentorship.Will I be subordinate to other product managers? Find out if you'll be at the top of the pile, or the bottom. Don't expect to be at the top if you're junior or joining after getting your MBA.Will I be responsible for overall product direction or only certain components of the product? This is related to the question above. Find out what you own, vs. what you work on. Ideally, you'll have some part of the product that is resourced appropriately and that you own the success for. That's how you'll make your mark.What mode is the product I'll be managing in; is it new, nascent, a turnaround, in maintenance mode, winding down? The PM role is very different depending on the mode of the product. Turnarounds often have a higher maintenance burden than new or nascent products, but an experienced PM can quickly come in, reboot the product roadmap, and put the product on a path to success. New products are challenging, satisfying, and often failures. Make sure you truly believe in the product vision if you're going to work on a new product.Is the next year's roadmap for this product already defined, or will I take a role in defining it? A baked roadmap is evidence of good product leadership, and correlates with product success, but will leave less interesting work for you to do upon joining.Does this role cover marketing, or is that covered separately? The further away marketing sits from product, the harder you're going to have to work at that relationship. Ideally you'll have dedicated marketing resources that live within the product team.Is there budget to market the product? Though not critical to market a product successfully, it's nice to know the company is willing to spend money to ensure its success. The budget might be simply a pool of money (unlikely these days), or it might be an established acquisition cost per customer that the company is willing to spend.What technical or other resources are allocated to this product, or the components of the product that I'll be responsible for? It sucks to manage a product that has no resources allocated to it. You can create plans all day long, but if no one is there to execute them then you won't achieve any positive results.Are those resources programmatically focused on this area, or do resources change with each product cycle? It's much better to have a stable team that has worked on a product through multiple development cycles. They'll know the product well and will be quicker to implement new features. It's much worse to have floating resources assigned to a product or featureset on an ad hoc basis every cycle.If you get answers to these questions in advance you can go into a new product management role with open eyes. If you have multiple roles to choose from, you can choose the one that is a better fit in the areas that are most important to you, which might be the product itself, or it might be the amount of independence you'll have in the role.

The answer to this question is tougher than it looks at first glance. The major reason for this is that Indigo is privately held and does not make its financials public. It does have to provide its financial statements, which is audited by KPMG, to DGCA though.Still, let's look at some factors that might have contributed to the consistent profits recorded by Indigo.I. Operations:Hutum Pencha's answer covers the technical aspects really well. There may be some repetition but I will try to add some more points.1. Single type of aircraft: Take a look at the list of aircraft being used by different airlines operating in India.http://www.dgca.nic.in/operator/sch-ind.htmIndigo's whole fleet consists of A-320-232 aircraft while Air India, Jet Airways and Spice Jet use 10, 9 and 3 different makes of aircraft respectively. This results is in greater flexibility by making use of the same crew from pilots to flight attendants to the ground force thereby cutting hiring, training and upgradation costs.2. Single Class: Having only Economy class means that Indigo does not have to spend time, money and crew on privilege passengers. They also don't need to maintain expensive lounges at airports further reducing costs.3. Low average fleet age: Indigo has an average fleet age of less than 3 years. A younger fleet means less maintenance costs. Indigo plans to maintain a lower fleet age as all its aircraft are leased for a period of 5-6 years. This way they avoid the D-Check which is done after 8 years of operation of an airplane. (A D-check may take up to 2 months during which the aircraft remains out of service.)4. Fuel: Domestic fuel taxes can be as high as 30 per cent along with an 8.2 per cent excise duty. As a result, fuel for Indian airlines accounts for about 45 per cent of total operating costs, compared to the global average of 30 per cent.Indigo's aircraft try to save fuel by using software to optimize flight planning for minimum fuel burning routes and altitudes and also by making use of latest fuel saving technology.Press release | Airbus, Indigo becomes the first Indian airline to use sharklet equipped A320.Indigo was one of the first airlines to place order for the Airbus A320neo family which claims to deliver 15% less fuel consumption and 8% lower operating costs.Press release | Airbus, Indigo places order for 130 A320 neoIndiGo was also among the first airlines to have the aircraft taxi to the terminal with one engine, shutting down the second engine to save fuel.The company is also involved in Fuel hedging after the government allowed it in 2007. Other operators like Spice Jet and Air India have also taken up hedging recently.5. Route Planning: Indigo operates over a lesser number of destinations than its competitors but with a higher frequency - with a fleet of 78 planes for 36 destinations while Spice Jet flies to 46 destinations with 58 planes. Not comparing Jet's fleet size as it operates more than double flights per day compared to Indigo.The network maps show that all Indigo's destinations are connected to at least two cities while most are connected to 3 or more destinations, whereas this is not the case with Jet Airways. This means Indigo can keep its aircraft in the air for a longer period of time and save up on airport charges. Because of this Indigo has a high aircraft utilization rate of more than 11.5 hours per day per plane. This also means that customers don't have to look for connecting flights with other competing operators.Spice Jet destinations also seem to be well connected, but they have a larger presence in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities (especially in the south) and traffic to and from these cities tends to be seasonal.6. Tightly framed maintenance contracts: Indigo has a Power by the Hour contract with International Aero Engines (IAE), which provides the engines, that put the onus of performance delivery on the manufacturer. IndiGo has similar agreements with Airbus, as well as with the vendors for other critical components. These contracts probably come at a premium but it means that Indigo does not have to pull out planes from service for repairs and also does not have to maintain a large inventory of spares.7. Other cost-cutting measures:Turnaround time - An airline is charged for the duration its aircraft stays at the airport. Indigo has a faster turnaround time (time taken between landing and the next take-off) of 30 minutes. Point 5 is one of the reasons for this. Having a single make of aircraft again helps in this regard as the time taken by the crew gets optimized.Employee Aircraft ratio - Lower employee aircraft ratio of 102 compared to Jet Airways's 130 and Air India's 262.Stage Length - Average Stage length (flying time per flight) of 1.5 hours, which means not having to stock and serve hot meals in most flights. This again contributes to the low turnaround time.Most Indian airlines take delivery of aircraft by sending their own pilots and engineers (to Toulouse in the case of Airbus). Indigo prefers to get them delivered to Delhi, this is costlier but it also leads to better utilization of the available pilots and the engineering crew.II. Marketing:Little advertising spend.High reliance on word of mouth marketing in its early days by establishing a reputation of being a no frills airline which is always clean and on time.Strategic marketing - Indigo advertised heavily when it started international operations and also when Kingfisher was going bust, with catchphrases like 'Let the bad times roll… Fly IndiGo in good times and in bad times.' taking a dig at Kingfisher's tagline 'Fly the good times.' This move was criticized but it worked for Indigo.The result of these operational and marketing aspects is visible in IndiGo which has a market share of 30% and the highest passenger load factor of close to 90% compared to 77% of JetLite and 81% of SpiceJet. This means better revenue for IndiGo compared to its competitors.http://dgca.nic.in/reports/Market.pdfIII. Financial Aspects:Debt: IndiGo has gone on record to say that the company has practically no debt. This is not the case for other airlines - Air India, Jet Airways and Spice Jet all have huge debts which were taken to finance expansions. A massive debt of more than 123.03 billion rupees was one reason for Jet's 24% stake sale to Etihad. Even Kingfisher Airline's major financial woes stemmed from their debt of more than 75 billion Rupees. Spice Jet has a relatively smaller debt of 16.45 billion rupees but it has been recording larger losses for some time now. A large debt leads to a considerable portion of revenue going to service the debt.Sale and Leaseback: From Wikipedia - Leaseback is a financial transaction, where one sells an asset and leases it back for the long-term; therefore, one continues to be able to use the asset but no longer owns it. The transaction is generally done for fixed assets, notably real estate, as well as for durable and capital goods such as airplanes and trains.IndiGo has been able to better leverage this by placing bulk orders for aircraft. In 2005, when IndiGo did not even exist as an entity InterGlobe Enterprises placed an order for 100 A320s during the 2005 Paris Air show. This was also one of the biggest orders during the show. The company again placed an order of 180 new A320s in 2011. Press release | Airbus, Indigo places order for 130 A320 neoA bulk order implies better bargaining capability with the manufacturer while buying and better returns when the aircraft are later sold using Leaseback agreements. It is estimated that airlines can make about $5 million per plane through sale and leaseback transactions. The returns from these transactions get amortized over several years and can also be included in the profits of the airline. Industry analysts have been estimating that Leaseback accounts for a large portion of IndiGo's profits but Indigo has been denying this. Other airlines like Air India, Jet Airways and SpiceJet have also taken to this model recently.IV. Vision:The large aircraft orders, phasing out of aircraft older than 6 years and Indigo's highly connected flight network to which a new destination is not added unless it can be connected to at least 2 other destinations point to a highly planned long term growth trajectory. Fleet planning has to be done decades in advance, so the above points also mean that IndiGo probably has cash rich investors.V. Influence:Finally, we come to the elephant in the room. IndiGo is privately held by two very low key people.- Rahul Bhatia, who owns 50% of the airline, is in charge of operations. He has almost two decades of experience in the travel business and, some say, contacts in the government. Does that mean acquiring the more profitable routes and slots? Maybe.- Rakesh Gangwal who owns the remaining 50% has a long history in the US airline industry. He brings global networking and expertise to IndiGo. Does that help in better bargaining with manufacturers and other suppliers? Again, maybe.Once again, since IndiGo does not make its financials public we can only estimate the factors that may have contributed to IndiGo's success. But, IndiGo's real test starts now as DGCA has given clearance to Air Asia, which is known to operate with a similar model, and is already planning to offer 35% lower fares.AirAsia wins operating permit in challenging new regionAviation regulator DGCA grants operating permit to AirAsia India: Official - The Economic TimesEdit: As pointed out by Prashant Maskara in the comments section, my answer mostly focuses on cost saving and does not reveal any source of profit other than sale and leaseback transactions. Please read through the comments for my answer to this.References:How Rahul Bhatia Found His Escape VelocityIndia’s airlines lost USD1.65 billion in FY2013. CAPA India Aviation Outlook 2013/14: Part 4SPICEJET LTD Stock - Yahoo! India FinanceJET AIRWAYS Stock - Yahoo! India FinanceIndia aviation grounded by high taxes: IATA chief Indigo's profits are not surprising, competitor's survival isHow IndiGo escaped the bluesThe secret of Indigo’s consistent profitsWhat keeps IndiGo's profit flying high?Indigo FY13 profit rises to Rs 993 crore