Customs notified airport status for Diamond Surat sought by AAI

Surat: The dream of Surtis to fly to international destinations from the city might get fulfilled. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) seems to have started serious efforts in facilitating direct international flight connectivity to Surat airport. Looking at the Diamond City's international connectivity potential, the AAI has written to Director General of Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) proposing to notify Surat airport as a customs-notified airport.
Regional executive director (western region) of AAI, K Hemalatha has dashed off a letter to the DG, CBEC requesting to issue notification for Surat airport as customs notified airport for carrying out international flight and cargo operations by first quarter of 2017.

Check-in time to drop at airport

Tired of being seen as the "poor parents" of glitzy PPP airports at metros like Delhi and Mumbai, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has decided to improve the passenger experience at its airports which will see check-in time drop significantly for them.

The state-run airport operator has started a pilot project at Kolkata's Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport where check-in counters are being 'redistributed' to ensure their "dynamic utilisation", AAI chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra told TOI. The check-in counters will not be painted with logos or signs of any particular airline but they will have electronic signboards on top.

Depending on how many flights an airline is operating at a given time, it will be given counters accordingly where the airline's name and flight number will be displayed. The idea: Not to have a mismatch between number of flights an airline is operating and the counters it has to avoid long queues.

5.26% of travellers arriving at Chennai airport avail e-tourist visa

Chennai international airport recorded the fourth largest arrival of foreign tourists, who availed e-tourist visa to visit the country in November this year.
While the city airport registered 5.26% of the total number of e-tourist visa travellers, Chennai is closely followed by Bengaluru airport with 5.23% and Kochi airport with 3%.
The monthly data was released by the Union tourism ministry on Thursday. According to an official release, a total of 1,36,876 foreign tourists arrived in November 2016 on e-tourist visa as compared to 83,501 during the same month in 2015 registering a growth of 63.9%.
To Read the News in Full 16/12/16 Yogesh Kabirdoss/The Times Of India

Airport operations take wing

Chennai airport resumed operations at 5.45am on Tuesday after it was closed due to cyclone Vardah on Monday.
Soon after it was opened, domestic flights from Bengaluru, Coimbatore, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Hyderabad landed and took off from the airport. A senior Airports Authority of India (AAI) official said, by noon, most of the domestic services had started landing the airport. Aircraft movement could be streamlined by then, he said. On Monday, when Vardah hit the city, nearly 400 people were stranded at the terminal. The AAI distributed lunch and supper to them, sources said.
To Read the News in Full 14/12/16 The Times Of India

Reduced yields impacting profitability of airlines: ICRA

Domestic air passenger traffic continued its healthy growth rate in the current fiscal, with YoY growth of 22.5 per cent in H1 FY2017. Addition of capacity by the new airlines and rapid expansion of capacity by the existing ones have resulted in 20.4per cent YoY growth in the industry available seat kilometers (ASKM) in H1 FY2017, consequently intensifying the competition. The same prompted all the airlines to resort to variety of fare promotions in order to improve their passenger load factors (PLF). Moderation of jet fuel prices in FY2016 had provided a generous cushion to all the carriers, thereby enabling them to reduce fares, which in turn has supported significant passenger growth. However, there has been hardening of jet fuel prices starting from March 2016, where the prices have increased by ~41 per cent sequentially over the last nine months, which has eroded the cushion for the airlines.

Indian Government not keen to allow Wi-Fi onboard flights anytime soon

While the rest of the world moves towards making Wi-Fi service standard on flights, India continues to prohibit passengers from using the service on flights operating in its airspace.

Even though authorities have been promising flyers Wi-Fi access onboard flights for a while now, the promise has not been fulfilled as the Indian government continues to ban the service on flights citing security reasons.

Back in August, the Indian government said that it was contemplating on allowing the use of Wi-Fi facilities on flights in the Indian airspace. Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey had even said that the decision was likely in as little as ten days.

Lohegaon airport will get branded food outlets soon

The Lohegaon airport authority is finalizing the blueprint to set up branded food outlets on the airport premises. The move is expected to boost the airport's brand image through better services.
"The idea is to have branded food outlets inside the terminal building as well as along the airport premises," airport director Ajay Kumar said. "The names of the brands cannot be disclosed now, but the eateries will be open for passengers soon," he said.
Passengers have expressed their concerns regarding the quality of food and the absence of a proper branded food outlet inside the terminal building, which according to many, are safe with the guarantee of food being fresh.
To Read the News in Full 16/12/16 Joy Sengupta/The Times Of India

Govt to boost tourism by promoting air connectivity

In a major step that will promote tourism and will make air travel cheaper, the government has decided to give incentives to private companies and create competitiveness among them.
The Government has planned to develop regional airports and infrastructure for remote aviation accessibility to boost tourism.

In order to develop these regional airports, the government is coming up with scheme 'Udan, ude desh ka aam naagarik', Union minister of state for finance and civil aviation Jayant Sinha said.

Airlines, airports seen ramping up IT budgets: Study

Airlines and airports in India are expected to rapidly ramp up their spend on new technology over the next three years to keep up with surging growth which will see passenger traffic double to 370 million by 2020.

According to SITA 2016 India IT trends benchmark study released at the India ICT Aviation forum 2016 on Friday, all airlines in India are expected to see IT budgets increase in 2017 compared with last year. SITA is a global communications and IT solutions provider.
To Read the News in Full 16/12/16 K Giriprakash/The Hindu Business Line

At 22%, domestic air travel grows highest ever in Nov

Demonetisation may have slowed down most businesses but not domestic air travel — at least for now. November saw almost 90 lakh people (89.6 lakh) flying within the country — highest ever number in a single month. "Allaying all growth fears, domestic passenger traffic has again clocked record growth of 22.4% YoY in the demonetisation month of November 2016," aviation minister A G Raju tweeted on Thursday. In November 2015, 73.2 lakh people flew within the country.

No security stamping tags on hand baggage at six airports

Fliers can now carry hand baggage without security stamping of tags at six airports, with the authorities starting a trial run of the project from Thursday. As part of efforts to ensure hassle-free movement of air passengers, the trial run of “non-stamping of baggage tag” has started at Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Ahmedabad airports.
After Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) assesses results of the trial project, “the same practice will be extended to other airports,” the Civil Aviation Ministry said in a release on Thursday. The trial run for one week would be applicable for domestic passengers.

Mumbai Airport First In India To Implement Self Bag-Drop

For passengers using the services of the Mumbai airport, managed by Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), backage and check-in process just became more convenient. Mumbai airport is now the first in the country to introduce ‘self-bag drop’ feature with the new SITA Scan & Fly service. In what is the nation’s 2nd busiest airport, passengers will have the advantage of dropping their baggage before heading directly to the gate, provided they have already checked in online.

These bag drop units are available to passengers of Air India, Jet Airways, SpiceJet, Go and Indigo flights. Rajeev Jain, CEO of MIAL explained,“MIAL would like to maintain and grow its position as the most innovative airport in India, using technology to optimize the current airport infrastructure and manage the rapid growth of passengers.

More international airline choice for desi flyers as govt protects Indian carriers' interests too

Indian globetrotters will soon get more choice of flights — along with possibly lower fares due to increased connectivity — to the west and Africa mainly via the Gulf. And in a first, the Modi government has managed to save the interests of Indian carriers too as the flying rights of some countries will go up only when Indian carriers utilize 80% of their bilateral with that country.
India has enhanced the flying rights or bilaterals of Oman by 30%, allowing the airlines of both countries to operate 27,405 seat per week from the coming summer - up 6,258 seats from the earlier figure of 21,147 seats. The points of call, or number of cities Oman carriers can fly to in India, were not enhanced and neither was Oman's request to increase frequencies to more than one city in Kerala acceded to protect Indian airlines.

India introduces Scheduled Commuter airline category

In an effort to increase participation in the Indian government's Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), the Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has unveiled a new category of commercial operator aimed specifically at the commuter carrier niche.

“In order to promote/enhance regional connectivity, the concept of Scheduled Commuter Air Transport Services has been introduced,” the aviation regulator said in a proposal issued last week.

India Signs Open Skies Agreement With Six Countries

India has signed an Open Skies Agreement with six countries at the International Civil Aviation Negotiations (ICAN), 2016 which were held in Nassau from December 5-9.

These are Jamaica, Guyana, Czech Republic, Finland, Spain and Sri Lanka.

The open skies allows unlimited number of flights to six metro airports namely Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Chennai.

The Conference was attended by 106 countries out of ICAO membership of 191 countries. India held negotiations with 17 countries and “Memorandum of Understanding” was signed with 12 countries.
To Read the News in Full 15/12/16 Anupama Airy/Defence Aviation Post