SunstarTV Bureau: Taj SATS will start home-delivery of meals, hence entering the non-aviation space.
The Pandemic has led India’s largest flight caterer, Tata Group Taj SATS, to venture into non-aviation space by starting home-delivery of meals. Due to the sharp decline in air travel and continued suspension of scheduled international flights, the air catering services suffered a huge loss.
Since the lockdown was imposed and most of the travel sector got restricted across the world, the flight caterers have been hit badly. Although the people have started flying again, they like to keep their masks on and avoid eating on short flights. Global air traffic is expected to return to pre-Covid levels only by 2024-25. Besides this, all big hotel chains have also started home delivery of meals from their restaurants across India.
Towards the end of August, continuation of onboard selling (by budget airlines) and serving (by full cost carriers) of meals was allowed for domestic flights. At that time, Indian airlines were allowed to serve hot meals on international flights along with alcohol. However, on domestic flights, meal sale is yet to take up.
Taj SATS has also launched its new brands of chocolates (Asa) and Indian sweets (Ishri), which will be available for retail sales on e-commerce platforms as well as for international sales, throughout the year.
