Thank you for the feedback — it’s appreciated. Your point on the competitive landscape is fair — a more extensive comparison could have helped. But the intent of the article was to spotlight Doms’ strategy and growth trajectory, especially after it went public.

Nuha Bubere The Ken, Staff Writer

Hello Vatsal, I agree that volumes play a huge role but online players relied on high discounts to capture that volume share and paid dearly. Volume is one part of it, you also need to have a handle on pricing and cost management. Having centralised testing labs helps these diagnostic centres but the problem was the lack of offline presence due to no collection centres which affects the business in the long-term.

Nuha Bubere The Ken, Staff Writer

Hello Nitthin, thank you for bringing that observation up. It is true that doctors were hesitant to work with Healthians test reports, and weren't keen on asking their patients to go to their labs. According to former employees at Healthians, doctors were quite satisfied with results from Dr. Lal’s or a Metropolis and had no reason to switch to Healthians. Hence the company didn't have doctors involved in their business and unlike acute, in preventive testing having a doctor involved is more of an individual’s personal choice. Healthians banked on that and as mentioned in the article they are partnering with standalone clinics now. So they are not going to these doctors but if someone wants to partner up, they do that through the Healthians app.

Nuha Bubere The Ken, Staff Writer

Hello Iresh, Thanks for writing in with such interesting points. 1. On the first point, your calculation suggests that you have considered a cafe count of 70 for the duration of FY22. However that does not hold true because the cafe count of 70 is as of September 2022. So we cannot take revenue of FY22 and cafe count of 70 to calculate the revenue run rate. My reporting shows that the cafe count as of March 2022 was 24 stores. So the actual revenue run rate for that period is 10.9 lakhs. And regarding HSR layout, it is indeed an exceptional case given clustering, also mentioned in our story. In any case, in general, not all cafes opened in a year would have been operational for the entire year; many would have opened during the year and would have contributed to overall revenue only for a part of the year. For instance, if an outlet opens around the end of the year, then its revenue could likely be lesser than one that has been operational for the entire year. So, the overall average could be low. The problem is often addressed by retail companies with a metric known as same-store-sales growth. It basically compares revenue growth across stores that have been operating for a year or more. This also helps assess the contribution from new stores. 2. Coming to your second point, I found from my reporting that the average size of a Third Wave outlet ranges between 700 sq ft and 2100 sq ft. Also, the rent per sq ft varies across locations. So, a smaller store in premium locality could mean higher rental than a bigger store in a not-so-premium locality. Hence, the average rent could differ from the Rs 150 per square that you have considered. That said, we have mentioned in the story that 60% of Third Wave stores aren't profitable. High costs vis-a-vis revenue and many new cafe openings seem to be among the reasons for this.

Nuha Bubere The Ken, Staff Writer

Hello Rahul, thank you for reading the article. In the story I have mentioned Nash equilibrium in the context of clustering. Here's an article that talks about it - https://yourstory.com/2023/07/game-theory-business-strategies

Nuha Bubere The Ken, Staff Writer

Hello Vansh, the story focuses on the lack of demand for fresher pilots even though there is an aviation boom. All the components - unreliable infrastructure and safety at training schools, the bond policy by airlines, unemployability factor further adds to the challenges in the pilot's training and recruitment opportunity. Hope that answers your question.

Nuha Bubere The Ken, Staff Writer

Good afternoon Uday. I will provide a breakdown as to why we have put 1000+ fresh pilots figure. There are 36 flight training organisations according to Ministry of Civil Aviation data. Every FTO takes in 20-30 students per batch and there are 3-4 batches a year. Even if we take lower range of the threshold, say 20 students per batch, and 3 batches a year and multiply with the number of FTOs we have well over 1000 students each year. I’ll also take out students from older batches. The number is still pegged at over 1000. And this doesn’t include foreign students who complete their training abroad and then convert their licenses in India. This is strictly the number of students training in Indian FTOs. The foreign pilots have to do conversion training as per DGCA regulation but that isn’t added in my figures. Several people have complained about the ROI being slow and mentioned that jobs weren’t easily available with airlines post their CPL training. Again, if you read the story, we are not saying that airlines don’t hire fresh pilots, but rather that they don’t want to hire them as currently with fleet expansion and couple airlines grounded, they would rather take in the experienced pilots first. As freshers require 6-8 months of training, they will take them eventually for later use but to get aircrafts off the ground as soon as possible they want type rated experienced pilots. The people we have termed ‘unemployable’ are the ones who only have CPL licenses with no type rating and no flying experience beyond training schools. Also, one important thing to note is that they are unemployable in the eyes of the airlines because they don’t fit the criteria that airlines need. The 10,000 unemployed pilot figure has been corroborated by pilots across airlines, also by sources close to DGCA. There is no official database but the figure has been increasing over the years. Airlines invest in pilot training but according to their own requirement. The IGRUA students that Air India Express recruited which I mentioned in the story are currently awaiting training because the previous batch of trainees are yet to complete theirs. This happened because Air India preferred to complete the training of Go First employees they recruited in May and release them online. They wanted to get the experienced pilots in their system faster and hence their training was given priority. That is what we are saying. Airlines will train and hire pilots depending on their requirement. In this entire scenario, freshers are naturally put on the backburner. If you notice in the story, we have mentioned about Chimes’ partnership with Indigo for training pilots, which is a good initiative and frankly more airlines and training schools should do this. But apart from Indigo barely any other airline has such a partnership. I would be glad if you can share information about the airlines apart from Indigo that does this. The investment figure of Rs. 1.5 cr that you have quoted here is specifically for Indigo’s cadet pilot program which is the figure provided online by Indigo and this has been mentioned in the article. The general figure we have used to indicate a student’s investment is upto Rs. 1 cr which is taken into account adding pilot training, airline training and type rating costs. Whereas the funds for international courses have been added after conversations with pilots that went abroad and a training school counsellor that works for an FTO that admits students abroad. I’m glad that you find our publication’s work brilliant and I can only say we take the same approach for each of our articles when it comes to research and reporting. Please do keep reading our articles and commenting.

Nuha Bubere The Ken, Staff Writer

Hello Uday, thank you for reading the article and sharing your feedback. At the outset, let me share with you that my research was based on extensive conversations with more than 20 pilots and trainees across airlines and flight training organisations, including Chimes Aviation Academy which apparently you are associated with. It may appear so but I did not use a broad brush to paint the entire aviation industry in the same colour. Rather, the quotes you see in the story are used after triangulation and corroboration with many other people. As for your issue with quoting one IGRUA student or one foreign pilot, there are numerous others who spoke about these issues in their own context. I won't take away the fact that you have a deep knowledge of the industry. But on the Maruti-Bentley analogy, the foreign pilot never said that a pilot doesn't need to work his/her way through extensive training in order to reach a level where he/she can fly a Bentley-esque plane. It's not that there is an issue with flying a training aircraft, then transitioning to a commercial one, be it a Boeing or an Airbus. Airlines today don't want to put that kind of effort behind training pilots; they’d rather poach experienced ones. This is why many of these freshers are termed unemployable. And that is what this story is conveying. Since you are part of an aviation academy yourself, may I ask why airlines rarely do placements from training schools today? Why aren’t there enough partnerships between airlines and schools when there is a boom in the aviation industry? I would be thankful for some perspective there.

Nuha Bubere The Ken, Staff Writer

Hello Vansh, the story focuses on the lack of demand for fresher pilots even though there is an aviation boom. All the components - unreliable infrastructure and safety at training schools, the bond policy by airlines, unemployability factor further adds to the challenges in the pilot's training and recruitment opportunity. Hope that answers your question.

Nuha Bubere The Ken, Staff Writer

Good afternoon Uday. I will provide a breakdown as to why we have put 1000+ fresh pilots figure. There are 36 flight training organisations according to Ministry of Civil Aviation data. Every FTO takes in 20-30 students per batch and there are 3-4 batches a year. Even if we take lower range of the threshold, say 20 students per batch, and 3 batches a year and multiply with the number of FTOs we have well over 1000 students each year. I’ll also take out students from older batches. The number is still pegged at over 1000. And this doesn’t include foreign students who complete their training abroad and then convert their licenses in India. This is strictly the number of students training in Indian FTOs. The foreign pilots have to do conversion training as per DGCA regulation but that isn’t added in my figures. Several people have complained about the ROI being slow and mentioned that jobs weren’t easily available with airlines post their CPL training. Again, if you read the story, we are not saying that airlines don’t hire fresh pilots, but rather that they don’t want to hire them as currently with fleet expansion and couple airlines grounded, they would rather take in the experienced pilots first. As freshers require 6-8 months of training, they will take them eventually for later use but to get aircrafts off the ground as soon as possible they want type rated experienced pilots. The people we have termed ‘unemployable’ are the ones who only have CPL licenses with no type rating and no flying experience beyond training schools. Also, one important thing to note is that they are unemployable in the eyes of the airlines because they don’t fit the criteria that airlines need. The 10,000 unemployed pilot figure has been corroborated by pilots across airlines, also by sources close to DGCA. There is no official database but the figure has been increasing over the years. Airlines invest in pilot training but according to their own requirement. The IGRUA students that Air India Express recruited which I mentioned in the story are currently awaiting training because the previous batch of trainees are yet to complete theirs. This happened because Air India preferred to complete the training of Go First employees they recruited in May and release them online. They wanted to get the experienced pilots in their system faster and hence their training was given priority. That is what we are saying. Airlines will train and hire pilots depending on their requirement. In this entire scenario, freshers are naturally put on the backburner. If you notice in the story, we have mentioned about Chimes’ partnership with Indigo for training pilots, which is a good initiative and frankly more airlines and training schools should do this. But apart from Indigo barely any other airline has such a partnership. I would be glad if you can share information about the airlines apart from Indigo that does this. The investment figure of Rs. 1.5 cr that you have quoted here is specifically for Indigo’s cadet pilot program which is the figure provided online by Indigo and this has been mentioned in the article. The general figure we have used to indicate a student’s investment is upto Rs. 1 cr which is taken into account adding pilot training, airline training and type rating costs. Whereas the funds for international courses have been added after conversations with pilots that went abroad and a training school counsellor that works for an FTO that admits students abroad. I’m glad that you find our publication’s work brilliant and I can only say we take the same approach for each of our articles when it comes to research and reporting. Please do keep reading our articles and commenting.

Nuha Bubere The Ken, Staff Writer

Good morning Uday. I will provide a breakdown as to why we have put 1000+ fresh pilots figure. There are 36 flight training organisations according to Ministry of Civil Aviation data. Every FTO takes in 20-30 students per batch and there are 3-4 batches a year. Even if we take lower range of the threshold, say 20 students per batch, and 3 batches a year and multiply with the number of FTOs we have well over 1000 students each year. I’ll also take out students from older batches. The number is still pegged at over 1000. And this doesn’t include foreign students who complete their training abroad and then convert their licenses in India. This is strictly the number of students training in Indian FTOs. The foreign pilots have to do conversion training as per DGCA regulation but that isn’t added in my figures. Several people have complained about the ROI being slow and mentioned that jobs weren’t easily available with airlines post their CPL training. Again, if you read the story, we are not saying that airlines don’t hire fresh pilots, but rather that they don’t want to hire them as currently with fleet expansion and couple airlines grounded, they would rather take in the experienced pilots first. As freshers require 6-8 months of training, they will take them eventually for later use but to get aircrafts off the ground as soon as possible they want type rated experienced pilots. The people we have termed ‘unemployable’ are the ones who only have CPL licenses with no type rating and no flying experience beyond training schools. Also, one important thing to note is that they are unemployable in the eyes of the airlines because they don’t fit the criteria that airlines need. The 10,000 unemployed pilot figure has been corroborated by pilots across airlines, also by sources close to DGCA. There is no official database but the figure has been increasing over the years. Airlines invest in pilot training but according to their own requirement. The IGRUA students that Air India Express recruited which I mentioned in the story are currently awaiting training because the previous batch of trainees are yet to complete theirs. This happened because Air India preferred to complete the training of Go First employees they recruited in May and release them online. They wanted to get the experienced pilots in their system faster and hence their training was given priority. That is what we are saying. Airlines will train and hire pilots depending on their requirement. In this entire scenario, freshers are naturally put on the backburner. If you notice in the story, we have mentioned about Chimes’ partnership with Indigo for training pilots, which is a good initiative and frankly more airlines and training schools should do this. But apart from Indigo barely any other airline has such a partnership. I would be glad if you can share information about the airlines apart from Indigo that does this. The investment figure of Rs. 1.5 cr that you have quoted here is specifically for Indigo’s cadet pilot program which is the figure provided online by Indigo and this has been mentioned in the article. The general figure we have used to indicate a student’s investment is upto Rs. 1 cr which is taken into account adding pilot training, airline training and type rating costs. Whereas the funds for international courses have been added after conversations with pilots that went abroad and a training school counsellor that works for an FTO that admits students abroad. I’m glad that you find our publication’s work brilliant and I can only say we take the same approach for each of our articles when it comes to research and reporting. Please do keep reading our articles and commenting.

Nuha Bubere The Ken, Staff Writer

Hello Uday, thank you for reading the article and sharing your feedback. At the outset, let me share with you that my research was based on extensive conversations with more than 20 pilots and trainees across airlines and flight training organisations, including Chimes Aviation Academy which apparently you are associated with. It may appear so but I did not use a broad brush to paint the entire aviation industry in the same colour. Rather, the quotes you see in the story are used after triangulation and corroboration with many other people. As for your issue with quoting one IGRUA student or one foreign pilot, there are numerous others who spoke about these issues in their own context. I won't take away the fact that you have a deep knowledge of the industry. But on the Maruti-Bentley analogy, the foreign pilot never said that a pilot doesn't need to work his/her way through extensive training in order to reach a level where he/she can fly a Bentley-esque plane. It's not that there is an issue with flying a training aircraft, then transitioning to a commercial one, be it a Boeing or an Airbus. Airlines today don't want to put that kind of effort behind training pilots; they’d rather poach experienced ones. This is why many of these freshers are termed unemployable. And that is what this story is conveying. Since you are part of an aviation academy yourself, may I ask why airlines rarely do placements from training schools today? Why aren’t there enough partnerships between airlines and schools when there is a boom in the aviation industry? I would be thankful for some perspective there.

Nuha Bubere The Ken, Staff Writer