Category Archives: Aviation

Year-on-year RPK growth slowed substantially in the domestic India market in March 2019, from 8.3 per cent in February, to 3.1 per cent currently, according to International Air Transport Association (IATA). Over the past five years, annual growth has averaged a double-digit pace close to 20 per cent. In large part, the slowdown reflects the disruption of flight operation for Jet Airways, including a number of flight cancellations, as well as construction works at Mumbai airport which also interrupted operations. Rising airfares in recent months are also likely to have weighed upon passenger demand.

The regional arm of national carrier Air India, Alliance Air has announced that it will launch flights to Pune and Bengaluru from Belgaum in Karnataka, six days a week from May 15. The new flight operation is being introduced under the central government’ regional connectivity scheme, UDAN. The airline will use 72-seater ATR aircraft on both the route. Flight 9I-513 will depart from Bangalore at 2.15 pm and arrive at Belgaum at 3.40 pm from where it will depart at 4.05 pm and arrive at Pune at 5.20 pm. From Pune, flight 9I 514 will depart at 5.45 pm and arrive in Belgaum at 7.05 pm. It will depart from Belgaum at 7.30 pm and arrive in Bangalore at 9.10 pm on all days except Tuesday, said the airline in a statement. Alliance Air has so far launched services on 29 regional routes under the Udan scheme, since its launch in April 2017.

Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian Airlines’ customer service is now also available via Facebook Messenger App. The chatbots can be used by all Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian Airlines customers. If the digital assistants do not know what to do, the chat can be forwarded directly to a service center employee. In the future, they should also provide specific answers on free baggage allowances, the whereabouts of baggage or push notifications in the event of delays, cancellations or gate changes. The bots are constantly being developed and will also be made available on other channels such as airline apps, airline websites or other messenger services such as Whatsapp. Self-services will play an increasingly important role in the future. In addition to automated solutions, Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian Airlines will continue to be personally accessible to their customers via their service staff.

SpiceJet has announced a slew of new international flights. The airline has already opened bookings for Mumbai-Bangkok flight which is effective 17 May, 2019. SpiceJet will soon connect Mumbai with Hong Kong, Jeddah, Dubai, Colombo, Dhaka, Riyadh, and Kathmandu. The airline has also announced 77 flights which includes 48 flights connecting Mumbai, 16 flights connecting Delhi and 8 flights between Mumbai and Delhi. The airline has also announced the launch of 12 new domestic flights connecting the key metros of Mumbai and Delhi. To counter the ongoing crisis resulting in a huge shortage of capacity in the Indian aviation market, the airline has been consistently working towards introducing new flights and frequencies to restore normalcy. The airline has in the past few weeks introduced a host of new flights from Mumbai to Madurai, Jammu (via Srinagar), Dehradun, Guwahati, Jaipur, Amritsar, Mangalore, Coimbatore besides additional frequencies to Chennai, Delhi, Patna, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

Budget-carrier of Singapore Airlines group, Scoot has commenced its daily non-stop flight from Singapore to Thiruvananthapuram as the airline also announced to cease its operations from Lucknow by June-end owing to weak demand on the route. The inaugural flight took off from Singapore on Tuesday with a 180-seater Airbus A320 aircraft at around 8:40 pm local time and reached the Thiruvananthapuram airport at around 10 pm local time, said the airline in a statement. After Thiruvananthapuram, Scoot is planning to start flights to Coimbatore and Visakhapatnam later this year. Commenting on the launch, Vinod Kannan, Chief Commercial Officer, Scoot, “The transfer of SilkAirs services to Scoot is intended to further optimise the SIA Groups resources and present a better match of capacity to demand. Scoot is well- poised to provide competitive pricing and strengthen Scoots presence in the India market.” With Thiruvananthapuram, Scoot now flies to eight cities in the country – Amritsar, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi, Lucknow, Tiruchirappalli. However, while the services to Lucknow will be discontinued after June 29, the services on the Singapore- Bengaluru route will be operated by the parent Singapore Airlines, effective May 16, the airline said.

IndiGo has recently opened reservation for its expanded service to Kathmandu, where the airline has scheduled 2nd daily Delhi–Kathmandu flight. From 20 June, the new flight will operate in the afternoon hours, with Airbus A320.

SpiceJet has introduced business class on its flights post acquiring 737-800 aircraft from grounded Jet Airways’ fleet, allowing passengers to book business class with fares at 30-40% less expensive than its competitors. Starting May 11, the airline will offer business class tickets on domestic routes between major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. It is believed that average business class fares would moderate in the coming days since Jet Airways, the largest provider of business class seats, shut operations last month. SpiceJet has inducted around eight Jet Airways’ aircraft with unchanged seat configuration including the business class cabin. For instance, SpiceJet is offering fares at Rs 32,000 for return journey on the Delhi-Mumbai route, as compared to around Rs 46,000 offered by other full-service carriers like Vistara and Air India. On the Delhi-Bengaluru route, SpiceJet is charging return fare at Rs 40,000 for a two-way travel, compared to Rs 53,000 offered by both Air India and Vistara.

Asiana Airlines, South Korea’s second-biggest carrier, will be shutting its India operations from July 8 along with two routes in Russia.  The airline will also suspend its first-class service in a move to improve profitability and enhance safety. Asiana Airlines website says that it is now only taking bookings until July 7 from Delhi to Incheon. 

SpiceJet has announced the launch of 12 new domestic flights connecting the key metros of Mumbai and Delhi with a host of cities on its domestic network. SpiceJet has introduced new flights on the Delhi-Vishakhapatnam-Delhi and Delhi-Kochi-Delhi sectors. The airline will also enhance its operations on the Mumbai-Bengaluru-Mumbai (5th frequency), Mumbai-Gorakhpur-Mumbai (2nd frequency), Mumbai-Chennai-Mumbai (5th frequency) and Delhi-Srinagar-Delhi (3rd frequency) sectors.

The Civil Aviation Ministry is now considering re-allocating the airline’s foreign traffic rights to Air India, SpiceJet and IndiGo. Local carriers have set sight on lucrative routes such as Mumbai-London, Delhi-Dubai and Mumbai-Paris and want the government to distribute slots for these sectors. The ministry has asked airlines to give their fleet induction plan so that a fair decision on giving traffic rights could be taken. (Source: IANS)