Vistara arrives in Chennai in a big way; to connect it to four cities in India

Chennai: India’s finest full-service carrier, Vistara, a joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, today inaugurated daily direct service between Delhi and Chennai. The airline will double the frequency between the two cities from March 1, 2018, providing convenient same-day return options in both directions. In addition, Vistara will fly daily direct between Chennai and Port Blair from March 1, 2018, and will further expand its operations from the city from March 25, 2018 with daily direct flights between Chennai and Kochi and double daily flights between Chennai and Kolkata. With the inclusion of Chennai to its expanding network, the airline now flies to all Indian metros.

In addition, Chennai customers can connect through Delhi to many additional destinations including Srinagar, Jammu, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Varanasi, Bagdogra, and Guwahati. Travellers also get to enjoy Delhi’s state-of-the-art Terminal 3 when flying Vistara, as well as seamless same-terminal connections when connecting to and from international flights at Delhi on Vistara’s 21 international airline partners.

AirAsia to stop flights from Mumbai from April 29

Mumbai: AirAsia has again decided to pull its flights out of Mumbai airport—this time, barely a year after relaunch. From April 29, Indonesian AirAsia X will not operate its Mumbai-Kuala Lumpur flights, which were popular with city tourists bound for Bali. The decision has left hundreds of passengers who have already booked their summer jaunt to Bali in the lurch.
Confirming the flight suspension, an AirAsia India spokesperson said that passengers who had bought tickets on Mumbai-Kuala Lumpur-Bali flights scheduled post April 29 have been given four options. First, re-route their flights through other nearby AirAsia destinations in India (at no cost, but subject to ticket availability) or retain the value of the fare in a credit account to be redeemed in six months or change the travel date to one before April 29 (again subject to availability) or obtain a refund.

Bagdogra Airport to have night landing facility by March end

Kolkata: Come March 29, Bagdogra Airport will have night landing facility in place to facilitate landing of aircraft in early morning and late evening. The number of flights operating from the airport will naturally pick up with the new facility. Private airlines like Spice Jet, Air Asia and Indigo have already held meetings with the higher officials of the airport and have evinced interest in morning and evening flights to Kolkata, once the system is put in place.

India's domestic air passenger traffic up over 19% in January

New Delhi: India's domestic air passenger traffic surged by 19.69 per cent to 1.14 crore in January from 95.79 lakh reported during the corresponding month of last fiscal, official data showed here on Friday.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January 2018 were 114.65 lakh as against 95.79 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 19.69 per cent," the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said in its monthly domestic traffic report.

According to the data, low-cost carrier SpiceJet had the highest passenger load factor (PLF) -- a measure of capacity utilisation of the airline -- at 95 per cent during during the moth under review.

"SpiceJet has yet again recorded the highest PLF in the industry and this is the 34th month in a row that we have flown with load factors in excess of 90 per cent...," said SpiceJet's Chief Sales and Revenue Officer Shilpa Bhatia.

It was followed by budget passenger carriers GoAir with PLF at 90 per cent, and IndiGo and JetLite at 89.7 per cent each.

Vistara plans to fly abroad from H2 of 2018, after inducting 20th aircraft

Chennai: Vistara, a full-service carrier promoted by Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, is planning to expand its wings to international markets by the second half of 2018.
The airline plans to apply for clearance after inducting its 20th aircraft in May.
After announcing the launch of daily direct flights between Delhi and Chennai today, Sanjiv Kapoor, Vistara’s Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer said currently the airline has 17 aircraft and needs 20 to apply for an international license.
Vistara is expecting its 20th plane in May, and plans to add two more taking the total number to 22 by June 2018.

Air India planning direct flights between Abu Dhabi and Indian cities

In view of the developing bonds between India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Air India will soon have direct flights connecting the major cities of both nations, a top official has said.

The management of Air India is mulling flights that connect Abu Dhabi with New Delhi and other Indian cities.

“The relations between two countries are on the upswing. There has been a great desire expressed by everyone that Air India should restore its full operations from Abu Dhabi to New Delhi. We are only connected to Mumbai and looking forward to having a connection to New Delhi,” said Ranjan Kumar Datta, Air India manager for Abu Dhabi and Al Ain region as quoted by Khaleej Times.
Revealing the strategy of increasing the frequency and seat pitch to woo the travellers, Datta said, “Our frequency here is not as high as we would like it to be and we are seriously looking at increasing the frequency.

Taking wings: Can Udan fly?

When the central government came out with the National Civil Aviation Policy on June 15, 2016, its commitment to ushering in regional air connectivity under Udan (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) was lauded by all industry stakeholders. However, behind closed doors they admitted that the scheme’s success was fraught with challenges. Biggest among them was whether all airlines, particularly IndiGo and Jet Airways, which together account for 58 percent of domestic air passenger traffic, would participate.

In the last week of January this year, the ministry of civil aviation announced that 325 additional regional air routes under Udan were awarded to airlines, including IndiGo and Jet Airways. This happened through a bidding process, the second in less than 12 months, wherein the airline with the lowest bid bagged the route. In order to incentivise airlines to operate in India’s hinterland, the government provides for a three-year monetary support.

Sharjah flight from Amritsar

Mohali: Air India officials have announced that the international flight to Sharjah will operate from Amritsar instead of Chandigarh due to the ongoing runway repair work. The Chandigarh international airport has been closed for civil and military flight operations till February 26. Till February 26, the flight IX 181 (Amritsar-Sharjah) will depart from Amritsar at 8 pm (local time) and reach Sharjah at 9.55 pm (Sharjah time). The return flight IX 182 will take off from Sharjah at 2.15 pm and arrive in Amritsar at 7 pm (local time). The flight will operate three days a week — on Monday, Thursday and Saturday.
To Read the News in Full 17/02/18 Tribune

Decision on big planes soon

Kozhikode: Pressure is said to be mounting on the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to resume the operation of wide-bodied aircraft at the Calicut airport after the Airports Authority of India (AAI) gave a favourable report to the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

“We have submitted an assessment report on the safety parameters and we are awaiting a decision in a week,” Airport Director J.T. Radhakrishna told The Hindu on Friday.
He said the DGCA could give approval after examining the report or inspect the tabletop runway and conduct a separate study to verify the safety assessment. Major airlines such as the Emirates, Saudia, and Air India had expressed willingness to operate the modern versions of the Boeing and the Airbus at the airport.

The operation of wide-bodied aircraft was banned from May 2015 in the wake of the Court of Inquiry report on the Air India Express Boeing 737 crash in Mangaluru in May 2010.

Now, daily flights to Singapore from Madurai

Now, flying to Singapore directly from Madurai will be possible all seven days a week, as Air India Express is introducing three more services a week from March 27. Besides, the same flight would be given a direct link between Kochi and Madurai.

Buoyed over the high patronage for its four days a week service that was started in September 2017, Air India Express has increased its frequency.

“We have lot of demand on Madurai-Singapore sector and are now increasing the frequency,” said its Chief Executive Officer, K. Shyam Sundar. The service on this sector is seeing an average occupancy rate of 90%.

Bengaluru airport to implement Aadhar identification for ticketless travelling

The Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in Bengaluru could soon use Aadhaar for identification and allow travellers to board their airplanes without a ticket in hand, by the end of this year.

Speaking at an interaction with representatives of the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FKCCI) on Wednesday, Hari Marar, Managing Director and President of the Bengaluru International Airport Ltd (BIAL) confirmed that the project to use Aadhaar identification to remove the need for printed tickets and extensive security checks, was being considered.

With this, the Bengaluru airport would become the first airport in India to be completely Aadhar-enabled.

Jet Airways operating profit declines 12%

India’s second largest airline Jet Airways today reported a net profit of Rs 165 crore for Q3 FY18 as against Rs 305 crore for the same period in FY17. But the airline had declared a one time income of Rs 128 crores from sale and lease back of aircraft in Q3 of FY17 as gainst Rs 8.36 crore in Q3FY18. Adjusted for this, profit would have declined 12% against the unadjusted dip of 45%. The airline however performed much better on other operating and business parameters and flew more passengers and also managed to reign in costs despite an increase in fuel prices it also leveraged its partnership with international carries and expanded its international footprint.

Flight service to Bengaluru resumes

Puducherry: SpiceJet has resumed daily flight service on the Bengaluru-Puducherry sector on Thursday.

Four years after the low-cost private airline suspended its service in the sector, a 78-seater Bombardier SG 3419 landed at the airport here at 10.30 a.m.

The flight took off from the Bengaluru airport at 9.40 a.m. The return flight, SG 3420, took off from here at 10.50 a.m. and landed in Bengaluru at 12.10 p.m.

The flight was given a water cannon welcome as it taxied down the runway.

Additional flights start between Udaipur and Delhi

Jet Airways has started additional flights between Delhi and Udaipur. The announcement was made by CP Joshi, President, Advisory committee of Maharana Pratap Airport Udaipur.

Flight No 2629 will depart from Delhi at 5:15pm and reach Udaipur at 6:55pm. Flight No 2630 will depart from Udaipur at 7:25pm and reach Delhi at 9:05pm.

Similarly Flight No 2293 will depart from Delhi at 6:05am and reach Udaipur at 7:50am. Flight No 2294 will depart from Udaipur at 8:20am and reach Delhi at 10:05am.
To Read the News in Full 16/02/18 Udairpur Times

Jet to launch flight to Delhi via Mumbai

Trichy: Jet Airways is all set to launch a new service between Trichy and Delhi via Mumbai from March 25 and has commenced booking for the same, according to information available on its website .
The website said that flight 9W311 would depart from Trichy at 2.30 pm and reach Mumbai at 4.40 pm and Delhi at 8.20 pm.
However, travel agents pointed out that they had not enabled any bookings in the return direction — from Delhi to Trichy via Mumbai.
Sources said that the private carrier had submitted its proposal to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for plan approval.