MakeMyTrip's Connected Trips.
Half of India's favourite weekends — Nainital, Manali, Pondicherry — don't have a direct flight. Travellers stitch Flight + Cab + Train themselves and absorb every delay, buffer, and cancellation risk. Here's a phased, executable plan for MMT to own that stitching — without losing the floor to IRCTC, inventory decay, or T3-to-Old-Delhi chaos.
Ship a Multi-Route engine that detects tier-2/3 destinations and presents pre-bundled itineraries with a single checkout. Phase 1: Flight + MMT-Assured Outstation Cab only — MMT controls the supply. Phase 2: layer in train legs once the IRCTC login wall and T3↔Old Delhi transit are de-risked. Backed by a 5-minute fare hold, geo-fenced airport pickup, and Cross-Leg Cancellation Protection.
§ 01The problem nobody owns.
A traveller booking Bengaluru → Nainital today opens MMT three times: once for the flight to Delhi, once for the train or cab onward, once for the local shuttle. Each funnel has its own price, its own cancellation policy, and its own blame surface when something slips. The Average Order Value is fragmented across verticals, and the customer carries every minute of buffer-time anxiety.
§ 02Who this is for.
§ 03The reality check.
Three operational walls every multi-modal pitch hits — and which a senior team will test you on first.
The IRCTC threat vector
IRCTC restricts automated workflows. By Indian Railways regulation, users must log in with personal IRCTC credentials and clear a captcha to book a train ticket. A true 1-click multi-modal flow with a train leg would require a jarring external login wall mid-checkout. Any roadmap that hand-waves this loses credibility on slide one.
The flight-to-train transit nightmare
Moving a tired traveller with luggage from Delhi T3 to Old Delhi Railway Station — via local cab or metro — is chaotic on a good day. A 4-hour buffer looks fine on a wireframe and breaks on a Friday evening. If that transfer fails, the user blames MMT, not Delhi traffic. CS escalation risk is enormous.
Inventory decay & liability
If the user stares at the multi-modal sheet for 10 minutes, the flight fare can jump ₹1,500 and the train can flip to WL. If checkout fires and one leg fails after the others succeed, MMT is on the hook for refunds, rebooking, and a furious customer.
§ 04A phased, de-risked rollout.
Don't try to ship the visionary three-leg bundle on day one. Ship the leg MMT controls first; earn the right to the harder one.
Flight + MMT-Assured Outstation Cab
MMT already owns the outstation cab supply network and vendor contracts. That means controlled pricing, guaranteed availability, and clean SLA enforcement on flight delays. No regulatory wall, no third-party login, no captcha.
- Cab pickup scheduled flight landing + 90 min (baggage + terminal exit).
- If the flight slips, MMT auto-shifts the pickup window — no penalty to user.
- One checkout, one cancellation policy, one support thread.
Flight + Overnight Train (Value bundle)
Only unlocks once two things are in place:
- A negotiated IRCTC partner integration (or a tokenised, MMT-stored IRCTC credential vault) that removes the mid-checkout login wall.
- A bundled, pre-booked airport-to-station transfer add-on with a 4-hour minimum buffer guardrail — so MMT owns the T3 → Old Delhi leg end-to-end instead of leaving it to the user.
§ 05The 5-minute fare hold.
To kill inventory decay during the bundle review, introduce a backend micro-service that locks the airline fare and cab rate for exactly 5 minutes the moment a user lands on the multi-modal sheet. A visible countdown ("Fare held for 4:32") sets expectation and creates a healthy urgency. If the user exceeds the window, the sheet refreshes with a single, honest re-quote — not a silent jump at checkout.
§ 06The geo-fenced airport handoff.
The Phase 1 cab isn't "find your driver in the parking lot." The MMT-assured driver stays parked in the airport's official vendor zone. The moment the flight's wheels hit the tarmac, the app fires an automated WhatsApp with the OTP, driver name, vehicle number, and parking bay. The handoff stops being a logistics problem and becomes a confirmation.
§ 07The Multi-Route sheet.
When the user searches a route with no direct airport (e.g. Bengaluru → Nainital), the app bypasses the default single-mode search and surfaces a comparative sheet.
Search: Bengaluru → Nainital
│
▼
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ RECOMMENDED MULTI-MODAL PATHS │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ⚡ OPTION A · Fast & Direct (PHASE 1 · LIVE) │
│ 7h 45m · ₹14,500 all-inclusive · Fare held 4:58 │
│ Flight BLR→DEL ▶ 90m buffer ▶ MMT-Assured Outstation Cab │
│ (2h 40m) (airport) (3h 45m, geo-fenced) │
│ [ Book Complete Journey ] │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ 💰 OPTION B · Value & Comfort (PHASE 2 · CONDITIONAL) │
│ 15h 20m · ₹7,800 all-inclusive │
│ Flight BLR→DEL ▶ 4h buffer ▶ Overnight Train (AC3) │
│ (2h 40m) (T3→OldDelhi) (7h 30m) │
│ [ Book Complete Journey ] │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘§ 08Cross-Leg Cancellation Protection.
The single biggest deterrent to multi-modal booking is downstream risk: "if my flight cancels, am I still on the hook for the cab and train?" An opt-in MMT Trip Assurance add-on resolves it: if Leg 1 is cancelled or delayed by more than 2 hours, the platform automatically triggers 100% refunds across every connected leg — without the user filing a ticket. This is what makes the bundle psychologically cheaper than booking each leg yourself.
§ 09How we'd know it worked.
§ 10Interactive prototype.
A four-step walkthrough of the Connected Trip flow: bundled search, 5-minute fare-hold timer, geo-fenced airport handoff, cross-leg protection add-on, and a dual-voucher receipt. Tap any tab to jump in.
§ 11Why this matters.
Tier-2/3 tourism is where India's travel growth is happening, and it's exactly where today's single-vertical booking experience hurts the most. The PM win here isn't a shinier search page — it's owning the buffer. Whoever absorbs the buffer-time anxiety, the inventory risk, and the cross-leg refund owns the customer for the entire weekend. Phase 1 ships that promise on a leg MMT already controls; Phase 2 earns the right to extend it.