Category Archives: Aviation

The wait is finally over. South African Airways (SAA) is set to return to the skies on September 23. The South African national carrier will resume flights after 16 months of being grounded due to viability challenges, in spite of repeated government bailouts and implementation of business rescue plan. Resumption of flights comes three months after the government conceded part of its airline stake to Takatso Consortium, who are now the majority shareholders with a 51 percent stake.

Maldivian is set to start direct flights from New Delhi to Maafaru and Male’ on 21st October 2021 and will be operating A321 & A320 on this route offering both business and economy class configuration. The national carrier of Republic of Maldives, owned and operated by Island Aviation Services Limited (IAS), currently operates to Trivandrum, Cochin and to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Bird Travels, the airline management arm of Bird Group is the General Sales Agent (GSA) for Maldivian and will be managing their sales and marketing activities in New Delhi. Flights on the new route, New Delhi to Maafaru, will operate on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Maafaru International Airport located in Noonu atoll was opened in 2019 and is also managed by Island Aviation Services Limited (IAS). With three direct weekly flights to Maafaru, another international hub of the largest source market, will connect North Maldives from India. Cocooned by some of the most sought-after luxury resorts in the destination, along with a large number of guest houses, the region is home to over 10,000 tourist beds spread across four atolls making this new route a highly lucrative leisure market. Speaking on the new route, Vijay Bhatia, President, Bird Group said “We are delighted to launch this new service connecting New Delhi with Maafaru and Male’ effective 21st Oct 2021. This direct flight will offer the fastest connection for Indian travelers looking to holiday in North Maldives luxury resorts”. Bird Travels will help Maldivian to further strengthen the airline’s sales team and provide support to the Indian travel trade.

Jyotiraditya Scindia, Union Minister for Civil Aviation, has said that the central government will focus on building air connectivity with countries that are part of Commonwealth of Independent States, while the world slowly comes out of coronavirus pandemic. He also added that the 2 Cs that are quintessential to economic growth is connectivity and commerce between India and the CIS region.

The Board of the Company TATA SIA Airlines has named Vinod Kannan who will succeed CEO Leslie Thng effective 1 January, 2022. Thng, after leading Vistara for more than four years, will move on to take up a senior appointment with Singapore Airlines from 1st January 2022. Kannan is currently serving as Vistara’s Chief Commercial Officer.

Garima Singh, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, emphasized on the development of connectivity in the region. There are altogether 15 airports ensuring efficiency of travel in the region. She also spoke about the new Greenfield Airport Project which is under development; the aim is to inaugurate it by 15th August ’22, in line with the celebration of 75 years of Independence. The commencement of operations at Tezu Airport in Arunachal Pradesh along with some other important projects was also brought forward in the discussion. Initiatives are being undertaken to enhance air connectivity for the development of tourism in the North Eastern Region.

Jyotiraditya Scindia, Union Minister of Civil Aviation, has said that they will be launching the Airsewa 3.0 portal under which they are deciding on the process of grievance escalation in airline companies as well, so that higher officers can close those grievances. Also, in terms of refunds, he said, “Getting refunds for passengers is not just the responsibility of the travel agents, but even the airlines will be responsible for closing the refunds.”

The government keeps September 15 as the deadline to receive financial bids for Air India. Despite the pandemic and changes to the share purchase agreement to accommodating the queries of the bidders, the government is hoping to achieve the critical milestone of financial bids. Speculations are for more than two bidders, though no confirmation from the government.

As per relief in guidelines given by Health and Family Ministry, airlines need not provide safety gears like masks, hand sanitizers, face shields or body covers to passengers. However, airlines need to ensure that passengers board aircrafts with their masks covering both mouth and nose. Travelers are required to follow Covid-appropriate behavior of wearing mask, hand hygiene and physical distancing.

Air Tanzania has announced the resumption of its services between India and Tanzania. The first flight out of DAR was on 30th August, 2021 and return from Mumbai was on 31st August 2021. To start with, this will be a bi-weekly service every Tuesday and Saturday out of Mumbai with convenient departure timings of 05.50 hours arriving in Dar es Salaam at 09.20 hours. It will operate B787-800 new Dreamliner aircraft. Once the situation normalises, the flights are likely to increase to thrice a week.

According to Ministry of Civil Aviation’s (MoCA’s) latest notification, India has started flights between 49 cities under the Air Bubble arrangement with 18 countries in September. These special flights will be operated by airlines under an air-bubble pact between two countries, their territories. The schedule of these flights is available only till September 30.