IndiGo, Qatar Airways to make a joint bid for Air India

New Delhi: As the government prepares to call for preliminary interest memorandum (PIM) along with expression of interest (EoI) from parties interested in gaining control of the national carrier, Air India, sources said that low-cost carrier IndiGo is likely to make a bid along with Qatar’s national carrier, Qatar Airways, in a consortium.

After the announcement that the government would be selling off Air India, the civil aviation ministry had said that IndiGo had expressed interest in buying the carrier. IndiGo also confirmed the same but said its first priority would be to buy the overseas flights of Air India if the government broke and sold the domestic and international flights as separate entities. However, government sources have said no such bifurcation would be made.

Sources also clarified that the net worth criteria that bidders must meet is likely to be fixed at Rs 1,000 crore, calculated on the basis of an existing formula under the Companies Act, before they are allowed to put in bids and access the bid data room for Air India.

Airports Authority of India hails UDAN scheme for exponential growth

New Delhi: On the sidelines of Airports Authority of India (AAI) annual day function; Chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra said that the recently launched UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) scheme would help the emerging civil aviation sector in the country to grow exponentially.

The UDAN scheme is a regional connectivity scheme launched by the Central government to make flying a safe, secure and inexpensive and would and thereby making air travel a reality for common people under.

While addressing the AAI family the Chairman said that in the aviation infrastructure front, “several terminal buildings at Gorakhpur, Belgavi, Hubbali, Jammu” were dedicated to the nation including operationalizing of the Central Air Traffic Flow Management (CATFM) in order to balance the demand and supply in the airports.

He added that CAT III B Instrument Landing System (ILS) was introduced at “Amritsar and Kolkata to reduce the difficulties faced by the travelling public due to fog and bad weather conditions but equally came out with flying colours for providing customer excellence to the travelling public”.

AirAsia India to expand domestically before international operations, says CEO Amar Abrol

Low cost carrier AirAsia India will focus on expanding its domestic network and increase its flight frequencies, before commencing international operations to Southeast Asia by early next year, the airline’s chief, Amar Abrol, said. Just a few days ago, the budget passenger carrier announced the addition of Nagpur and Indore to its network, effective March 17. It will also introduce new routes connecting Bengaluru, Kolkata, Goa, Indore and Nagpur. In addition, the airline will operate daily flights connecting its two hubs — Bengaluru and Kolkata — which will become operational from March 25.

“We are not shying away from India. We will first commence flight operations to new domestic destinations and increase frequencies. In all we are looking at starting flights to four to five new cities in this year,” Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Abrol told IANS in an interview. “We are making the preparations for international operations but it will most probably take place by the first quarter of 2019,” he added.

Pakyong airport to be operational soon; fly to Sikkim from Delhi, Kolkata and Guwahati

Gangtok: Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling has said the newly-constructed airport at Pakyong will soon become operational. “The Pakyong airport is now ready and will be operational soon,” he told the state Assembly yesterday. Expressing happiness over the successful landing of an Indian Air Force Dornier aircraft on March 5, the first-ever landing of an aircraft at the new airport, Chamling said a SpiceJet plane was scheduled to land at Pakyong airport on March 10.

New airport to ease load on Bagdogra

Siliguri: The commissioning of the Pakyong aerodrome in Sikkim is expected to ease the load on the Bagdogra airport as a number of air travellers in the Himalayan state and Kalimpong district will shift to the new facility.

The Bagdogra airport has been facing acute congestion because of inadequate infrastructure at the terminal. But the state government is yet to provide land to the Airports Authority of India for expansion of the terminal and allied facilities like car parking.

The airport at Pakyong, located around 35km from Gangtok and around 95km from here, is set to be inaugurated soon. Spicejet has been permitted by the Union civil aviation ministry to operate flights from Pakyong. The airline will operate Bombardier Q 400 planes with 78 seats on the Calcutta-Pakyong-Guwahati and the Delhi-Pakyong routes.

Centre to renovate 56 airports in 18 months

Hyderabad: In an infrastructure boost for the UDAN scheme, the Centre plans to finish renovating 56 airports and 31 helipads in the next 18 months for them to meet the licensing requirements to ply flights under the UDAN scheme, a senior official said here on Wednesday. 

“The finance minister, in his 2017 budget speech,  had allocated Rs 4,500 crore for the renovation of the airports so that they meet the licensing requirements. Over the next year and half, we are hopeful that the we’ll be able to complete renovating 56 airports and 31 helipads for them to meet the requirements,”  the ministry of civil  aviation joint secretary Usha Padhee said
Ms Padhee, who was in Hyderabad for the  BizAVIndia 2018 summit organised by industry body BAOA, added, “About 20 such airports have already been renovated and have been given the go ahead. The remaining will soon be finished.”

Jet Airways introduces filter coffee on international flights

Pune:  Jet Airways has introduced authentic ‘Filter Coffee’ on its select international flights from India. Guests can now feel at home while enjoying a hot steaming cup of South India’s favourite brew while cruising at 35,000 feet, Jet officials said
The launch of Filter Coffee and a variety of other offerings including a fresh new range of champagne, forms part of Jet Airways’ refreshed in-flight dining experience in its endeavour to provide its guests with unique experiences aboard its international flights.
Effective March 1, guests flying First Class and Premiere onboard Jet Airways’ flights from/to India to/from Amsterdam, London, Paris and Toronto are able to enjoy Filter Coffee.
To Read the News in Full 07/03/18 Joy Sengupta/Times of India

Alliance Air adds aircraft for UDAN

Alliance Air, Air India’s fully owned subsidiary that operates flights to Tier II and Tier III cities, is expanding its fleet to operate more flights as it bags additional routes after the second round of bidding under the government’s subsidised air travel scheme UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik), aimed at boosting connectivity to the smaller towns. “Alliance Air is scheduled to add at least 10 ATR 72-600s in financial year 2017-18, of which seven have already joined the fleet and remaining three will join soon,” said an Air India official. The airline is also in the process of hiring cockpit and cabin crew for the same. Alliance Air operates air services to 46 destinations with a fleet of 13 ATR 72-600s and 2 ATR 42-320s (48 seater), with 90 daily departures and a load factor of about 90%.

Alliance Air, which was earlier the lone operator on many regional routes, finds itself pitched against not only new regional players like Zoom Air and Air Deccan but also fast-expanding private players like IndiGo, Jet Airways and SpiceJet, which deploy a majority of their capacity on trunk routes.

Delhi, Mumbai Airports Among World’s Best: Survey

Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport and Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport have been named among the world’s best airports in their respective categories in Airport Service Quality (ASQ) ratings for the year 2017 taken by Airport Council International (ACI).

While Delhi was named as the best airport in 2017 for passenger service, Mumbai was placed on top for customer experience under the category of airports handling over 40 million passengers per annum. The Hyderabad airport came No.1 in the category of airports catering to 5-15 million passengers per annum for the year 2017. In the very same category, Kochi, Kolkata and Pune airports tied for the third place.

Lucknow came in first in the 2-5 million passengers category, while Bengaluru and Chennai airports came second and third, respectively, in the 15-25 million passenger per year category in the survey results that were released on March 3 by ACI, an association of world’s airports comprising 1,953 member airports in 176 countries. ASQ helps in understanding how to increase passenger satisfaction and improve business performance.

Air Arabia eyes more flights to India, sees strong growth

Mumbai: Sharjah-based budget airline Air Arabia, which has not been able to expand in India due to constrained bilaterals between India and the UAE, says it sees strong demand to deploy more flights between India and its hub at Sharjah. It is hoping there would be an increase in the number of the seats allotted to the no-frills carrier in the near future.

“We always want more capacity and our job is to convey this to the governments. And the governments then meet and decide. We have been requesting the governments for some years now and whenever the decision is made (to increase the number of seats), it will be good,” said Adel Abdullah Ali, group CEO, Air Arabia.

The current stalemate over not allowing more seat allocation to airlines operating between India and the UAE, Ali said, was because airlines in India were not using the entire capacity that was made available. But now, as Indian carriers expand and budget airlines fly more passengers to the UAE, this seat utilisation has reached near-optimum levels with the scope for renegotiating the seat share between the countries.

Thomas Cook opens 2 foreign exchange outlet in Varanasi airport

New Delhi: Travel services firm Thomas Cook India today said it has opened two new foreign exchange outlets at Varanasi Airport considering the strong growth potential of Uttar Pradesh.
Citing industry data, the company said Varanasi Airport has witnessed strong growth in passenger numbers, from 1 million in 20142015 to 1.9 million passengers in 2017-2018.
"Varanasi is a key and high growth opportunity for our foreign exchange business being a prime gateway airport for the Buddhist circuit, also for UP's strongly emerging outbound travel segment," Thomas Cook (India) Senior VP & Head-Sales & Relationship Management Foreign Exchange Deepesh Varma said.
To Read the News in Full 08/03/18 PTI/Business Standard

Jaipur Airport ranked #11 in country for daily scheduled flight operation

Jaipur: Jaipur International Airport has got ahead of Lucknow and many other airports in the country in terms of number of daily scheduled flights. A total of 69 scheduled flights are being operated from Jaipur Airport on a daily basis. Of them, 60 flights are domestic, while nine are international.

Lucknow has slid behind Jaipur on the list. The data was recently released by the Airport Authority of India. Delhi was ranked number one with 641 flights followed by Mumbai (459 flights), Bengaluru (320 flights), Chennai (251 flights), Hyderabad (228 flights), Kolkata (224 flights), Kochi (110 flights), Ahmedabad (99 flights), Pune (87 flights), Goa (75 flights) and Lucknow (64 flights).

Jaipur Airport still lags behind in terms of the number of international flights. Jaipur Airport was operating 46 flights daily till March, 2017 lagging behind Guwahati and Lucknow airports.  The growth rate suggests that Jaipur will soon race ahead of Goa also.
To Read the News in Full 04/03/18 Pink City Post

AirAsia India to begin overseas operations by Jan 2019: MD&CEO

Budget carrier AirAsia India has charted out expansion plans to connect more tier-II and III cities and set a target to commence flights to overseas destinations by January 2019, a top official said. The airliner last week inducted its 16th aircraft and announced the addition of Nagpur and Indore to its list of destinations.

According to AirAsia India, Managing Director and CEO, Amar Abrol, the airliner has planned to commence overseas operation by January 2019 once it has 20 or more planes. "Our strategy is that once we get to 20 planes (operating in domestic operations) we will start flying international. Mostly, it will be to South East Asian countries," he told PTI here.
Stating that 27 per cent of the people who fly with AirAsia were flying for the first time ever, he said, "So, we are opening up Indian skies. And we are getting lot many more Indians to fly for the first time."

Aviation sector on a high as UDAN spreads wings

Mumbai: India is rapidly expanding its aviation network beyond its biggest cities, developing airports at 18 smaller and unserved destinations over the past year and seeking to bring commercial flights to at least five more towns over the next few months. “By March end, we aim to operationalise others such as Adampur in Jalandhar and Salem in Tamil Nadu,” a senior official at the stateowned Airports Authority of India (AAI) told ET.
Another 12 airports, to be put up for bids, are in various stages of development and may take more than a year to be ready. To be sure, industry sources are somewhat sceptical about the fate of all of these links, and believe that some may require complex issues to be solved before flights were to begin. Under the UDAN plan, which seeks to democratise and broaden aviation linkage in a nation where flying still remains beyond the reach of many citizens,the government is building airports in unserved or under-served locations, offering incentives for airlines to fly to these destinations.

GoAir Offers Discount on Domestic Flight Tickets

GoAir airline is offering up to Rs. 1,000 discount on its domestic flight tickets. GoAir has partnered with Shopclues to give discount of up to Rs. 1,000 on domestic flight tickets. GoAir's offer is valid till March 31, 2018. The travel period for availing GoAir's discount offer on domestic flight tickets ends on August 10, 2018. However, GoAir's special offer is not applicable on travel between February 23, 2018 to March 4, 2018, March 20, 2018 to April 4, 2018 and April 15, 2018 to July 15, 2018, according to the carrier website-goair.in. Customers can avail the discount by using promo code 'GOAPP10' on GoAir's mobile app.