Aiming to fly high Star Plus's Airlines!

No longer restricted by the traditional “female only” professions, the new age Indian woman is challenging and making her mark in stronghold male bastions. New India is a country of youth, a country which is seeing the emergence of the young woman; the woman who walks boldly down the road less travelled and lives her dream. The finest example of this is the Aviation industry where till recently, women were air hostesses and the coveted pilots of the aircraft were men.

Breaking the stereotype STAR Plus is all set to launch Airlines - Har Udaan Ek Toofan. The story of Flight Officer Ananya Rawat forms the central theme for Airlines, as she personifies the aspirations and ambitions for most young Indian women.

Adgully caught up with Nikhil Madhok, Sr. VP Marketing & Programming Strategy and Nikhil Alva, Creative Head-Miditech to get some deeper insights on the new show.

Madhok says, “The aviation industry has conventionally been seen to be male-dominated. The only visible position occupied so far by women has been as Air Hostesses. Our new show Airlines, challenges this stereotype with a brave new protagonist Ananya Rawat, who is her airline’s first female pilot recruit. This show has a completely new backdrop and new narrative style, which we feel will connect with young women across the country. We hope that Ananya’s journey will inspire more young women to challenge stereotypical thinking and give wings to their dreams. Every episode has a story to tell and is story in itself. It is one of American shows where in they have a story in very episode.”

Speaking on a new time band that Star is picking up, Madhok said, “Let’s look back, from last couple of years Star has become quite popular with the youth of the country and when India as a country becomes Younger it is important for us to be relevant to them. About six months ago, we moved to Monday to Saturday (from Monday to Friday) and that move paid rich dividends. Currently where we stand in terms of ratings is far much better than the competition. Having said that, Monday to Saturday is quite sorted for us but Sunday was one such day wherein we couldn’t clad our programming strategy hence we thought of offering something that is little different on a Sunday late evening. And that’s why two shows; Raw Star and Airlines on a Sunday.”

Set in Delhi, the show features the journey of First Officer Ananya Rawat who navigates through a world of gender discrimination and regressive attitudes embedded in the modern and glamorous aviation industry. In her quest to establish her identity, Ananya realises that there is more to this industry than just battling male attitudes as she comes across many hindrances that eventually make her a stronger person.

Sharing the thought behind the concept if Airlines, Alva said, "The thought came across as I was travelling; where I learnt that there is lots of demand in smaller towns and 1 million plus towns for Air hostess academies. We thought of doing more research on that and to see the airlines industry as an aspiration, something that those audience would like to be part of and also because if we see airlines as an industry is not at all small and flying is only small section it’s a vast industry. So, we tried to get glamorous and interesting young actors with high-end drama. The aircraft gives you an ability to bring new characters in every episode as passengers are kept changing."

“With Airlines, the story of the most coveted the most dangerous and the most glamorous profession of them all - the Aviation industry comes to life. It will mark the Bravery and the magnanimous attitude of a women pilot in the aviation industry. The production house has not only shot exclusively against a glamorous background, but has also roped in real life pilots to tutor the actors.” he added.

A fast paced thriller, each episode poses a fresh challenge and promises to take viewers into Ananya’s new world of adventure, action, intrigue and drama.

On asking Alva further about TG, he said, “It will appeal to cross section audience as we believe that young audience will like the drama and thriller part of the show whereas mature audiences will like the characters, challenge and life cycle of the characters. The season one is of 26 episodes and the ideas for season 2 is been planned. As most of this kind of shows work on season base.”

As far as TG is concerned, Madhok said, “Yes, the target is primarily younger audience. We started this thought say about two years back wherein we thought of putting specific content choices for both new shows and existing shows keeping the youth in mind.”

The show marks the TV debut of Tulip Joshi who plays Ananya and VJ turned actor Yudishthir aka Yudi essaying the role of Captain Akash. It is produced by Miditech and has been written by Advaita Kala, who also authored the recent sleeper hit Kahaani.

Miditech has done shows like Saara Aakash, Chhoona Hai Aasmaan which are amongst their successful shows, on asking how different is Airlines. Alva briefed, “Earlier shows were based on the life character live in the air force.  There is no similarity between earlier shows and this except the flying part which is again very less. The reason being, in those days we never had high end VFX the way we have it today. We have world class VFX effects with us.”

The though process and morality for the show is strongly Indian, as according to the makers of the show airline industry is not foreign anymore, it’s a part of who we are. It has got an international production value as it has high level of VFX and effects and is a finite series and is not a family drama.

As the show will be aired on weekends, we asked Alva that how competitive is the time band according to you. He said, “Yes, it is competitive being on weekends, loads of big scale shows and movies come on Sundays so it's a challenging task. I am happy that Star Plus with this show is building a different programming experience for the viewers."

From roping real pilots for tutoring actors to shooting at existing Terminals, Star Plus has put in its best to retain authenticity of the situations and incidents covered in the show. Since most of the sequences require the setting to be inside an aircraft, a special set modelled on Boeing 370 has been created. Miditech has also collaborated with Pixion to help recreate the world in the skies with its unparalleled proficiency in computer graphics and visual effects.

It seems that there is a huge amount of investment went in for the show in terms of building the structure. But if show works well for the channel, Star Plus will be able to make loads of revenues from this show. Fasten your seatbelts as the brave new Indian woman’s Airlines will be taking off on 24th August 2014 at 9PM only on Star Plus. 

As we all know Star Plus is getting two shows on the weekend slot, Raw Star and Airlines. Raw Star is launched with aim to drive more and more audience for something different unlike regular music shows and with Airlines a new genre. With this step there will be an inflow of audience on the weekends. He said, “Initially a show like this would need a supporting show like Raw Star which has Youth icon to drive audience for Airlines and as with time when the concept propels among the audience then we can expect audience coming in for Airlines.” 

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