Category Archives: Aviation

Following the commencement of first flight between Delhi and Shimla under regional connectivity scheme, Air India’s wholly owned subsidiary Alliance Air will begin its second flight service under Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) scheme on Delhi-Gwalior-Indore-Mumbai route starting May 31, 2017. The newly launched flight service will be operated by the 70-seater ATR 72-600 all economy class aircraft. Delhi-Gwalior, Mumbai-Indore and Indore-Mumbai routes will not fall under regional connectivity scheme while benefits of the scheme will apply on other routes that is Gwalior-Delhi with fare of Rs. 1830, Gwalior-Indore with fare of Rs. 2500 and Indore-Gwalior with fare of Rs. 2500. Operating three days a week on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, flight 9I 628 will depart from Delhi at 0950hrs and reach Gwalior at 1050hrs. The onward flight from Gwalior will depart at 1120hrs to reach Indore at 1235hrs and then leave Indore at 1305hrs to land at Mumbai at 1450hrs. Flight 9I 627 on Mumbai-Indore-Gwalior-Delhi route will leave Mumbai at 1030hrs and reach Indore at 1215hrs. The flight will then leave Indore at 1250hrs to reach Gwalior at 1400hrs and furthermore, the flight from Gwalior will leave at 1430hrs and land at Delhi airport at 1530hrs.

SriLankan Airlines, the national carrier of Sri Lanka and a member of oneworld alliance, will be establishing its presence in Australia with daily non-stop services to Melbourne commencing October 29, 2017. The non-stop services will also facilitate passengers from the Middle East and South Asia seeking onward connectivity via Colombo to/from Australia. The airline will be operating Airbus 330-200 aircraft on the route. For the convenience of travellers seeking onward connectivity from its Colombo hub, SriLankan currently connects over 10 Indian points with over 100 flights a week, which includes services to/from Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Calcutta, Trivandrum, Tiruchirappalli, Cochin, Mumbai and New Delhi. SriLankan will be adding Visakhapatnam, Coimbatore and Hyderabad to its route network in July this year, further expanding its presence in India. SriLankan Airlines’ Chief Executive Officer, Captain Suren Ratwatte, said, “Our presence in Australia cements the long-standing relationship between our two countries. We recently celebrated the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between our nations, and the addition of Melbourne signifies our strategy of optimizing the Airline’s network in line with our restructuring. This also means that we have connected another continent to our global route map. On the other hand, given the number of Sri Lankans residing in and around Victoria, we fulfill a long felt need for a direct service. We are proud to welcome all the diverse residents of Victoria who can now enjoy the direct connections when visiting their friends and families throughout our network.” Australia is home to one of the largest Sri Lankan expatriate communities, many of whom reside in and around Melbourne, the capital of Australia’s ‘Garden State’, Victoria. This factor, together with the tremendous potential for business travel and …

IndiGo has opened a fully-equipped gym for the police officials in Jammu as part of its FitToFly programme. Commenting on this initiative, Aditya Ghosh, President and Whole-Time Director, IndiGo said, “We are absolutely delighted to see our FitToFly programme being extended to different parts of the country. After a successful launch of FitToFly gyms in twelve cities, we are happy to collaborate with the Jammu police force. At IndiGo, we feel for our police force who work day and night to provide us the security we need. Setting up gyms for them is an important move to encourage them to start making choices to live a healthier life by choosing to be holistically fit.” The FitToFly gyms will be fully equipped with multi-purpose machines, cross trainers, treadmills, bench press and other facilities. As a part of this multi-city campaign to promote fitness and a healthy lifestyle – IndiGo launched its first gym at Jaipur international airport, in February this year followed by Gurugram, Dimapur, Chennai, Dehradun, Patna, Bhubaneswar, Raipur, Goa, Udaipur, Guwahati, Indore, and Varanasi.

Vistara has taken delivery of its first Airbus A320neo (new engine option) at Airbus Headquarters in Toulouse, making it the 14th aircraft in the airline’s fleet. Apart from the technical advancements that come with the A320neo, Vistara has unveiled several enhancements to the product on the aircraft, including mood lighting (first time in India for an Airbus A320 operator), more comfortable seating with a new seat bottom and seat-back design, softer cushions, and a refreshing new look across all three cabin classes. The aircraft also carriers the Vistara and Airbus A320neo logos on the underbelly of the aircraft, a first for Vistara. The Business Class cabin exudes a luxurious ambience with a fine blend of airline’s brand colors, Aubergine and gold. Features such as wider seat backs, softer cushions, enhanced literature pockets and softer leather upholstery promise a premium experience onboard. The rich color scheme of Aubergine and Gold continues into the exclusive Premium Economy cabin, with improved seat cushions, softer seat leather, re-designed height four-way adjustable headrest. Economy Class in the new aircraft has a calm Grey and rich Aubergine color scheme with enhanced cushioning for seats crafted in soft leather and with padded head support.

Dubai-based airline, flydubai, has launched its new holidays division titled ‘Holidays by flydubai’ which will become its tour operating arm. It aims to simplify travel by providing customers with the choice to customise packages including flights, hotels and other ancillary services such as airport transfers, sightseeing packages, car rental and more. “Holidays by flydubai will represent a new milestone in flydubai’s journey as we enter a more mature phase of our operation,” said Hamad Obaidalla, Chief Commercial Officer at flydubai. “We continue to challenge the conventions of travel in the region and exceed our customers’ expectations. Holidays by flydubai will enhance the overall travel experience as we give customers the freedom to design their own holiday in one convenient place.” As part of the offering, a new online portal for Holidays by flydubai, will allow customers to browse, book and pay for flights, accommodation and services all within a single booking process. The portal will also allow travel agents, distributors and flydubai-authorised travel shops to design and book tailor-made packages. Around the clock sales support will be another feature available to customers. Nelson D’souza, Vice President-Holidays, said, “By combining internally sourced wholesale hotel rates and rates provided by third parties along with our competitive airfares, Holidays by flydubai will aim to provide affordable packages making travel more accessible to more people. We will work closely with travel trade experts to ensure the customer interface and the functionality of this portal is user-friendly, enjoyable and reliable.” Holidays by flydubai will offer holiday packages around the flydubai network including popular destinations such as: Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Egypt, Georgia, India, Maldives, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey and the UAE.

Air India will commence non-stop flight service between Delhi and Stockholm from August 15, 2017. The flight will operate thrice a week (Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays) with each flight roughly having eight-hour duration. Ashwani Lohani, Chairman & Managing Director, Air India, said, “As part of Air India’s international route network expansion plans, we are happy to announce the Delhi-Stockholm direct flight from August 15, 2017. The flight will be operated thrice a week on Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.” The flight will depart from Delhi at 1400 hrs (IST) and land at Stockholm at 1820 hrs (CET). The return flight will leave Stockholm at 2100 hrs (CET) and reach Delhi the next morning. “This comes at a very positive time in our relations and will continue to strengthen our partnership for the future. We appreciate the importance it will have for our bilateral relations, especially for people-to-people relations, for tourism in both directions, for students and for business and investment,” said Ann Linde, Minister for EU Affairs and Trade, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Govt. of Sweden, who is currently on a two-day visit to India. Incoming traffic from India to Sweden has grown over the years. In 2016, Sweden had 175,088 bed nights (commercial overnight stays) from India as per the statistics fromTillväxtverket (the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth) which was 128% up from the bed nights registered in 2011. “For us, India is a market with great potential for Swedish Tourism. During the last five years more and more Indians chose Sweden as their holiday destination. Beautiful nature, unique experiences such as the Northern lights, and its progressive lifestyle makes Sweden an exciting emerging destination for Indian travellers. …

Indonesia AirAsia Extra has started a direct flight from Mumbai to Bali (Denpasar) from May 19, 2017, with a 45 minute layover in Kuala Lumpur. It will operate this route using A330-300 with 377 seats (12 flatbeds and 365 economy seats). The flight departs from Mumbai at 22.50 hours and arrives in Bali at 10.45 hours the next day. Indonesia AirAsia Extra is the 4th airline under the AirAsia Group to operate to Indian destinations. Commenting on the occasion Suresh Nair, General Manager, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, AirAsia, said, “The flight has got good response and we are happy with the current response from Mumbai and Maharashtra market. We will have daily flights from Mumbai making seven flights a week. We expect good number of people to travel from India to Indonesia and vice versa. We started the flights with an introductory fare of Rs. 2,552 (plus taxes) which was well received by everyone. We continue to offer low fares on all sectors. Currently we are offering a return fare of Rs 14,999 and we continue to strive to keep the fares as low as possible.”

IndiGo has announced its first non-stop flight and 5th overall flight between Singapore and Bengaluru, which will start from June 30, 2017. The launch of the daily direct flight would offer an affordable and a convenient option on two of the busiest business sectors. Sanjay Kumar, Chief Commercial Officer, IndiGo, said, “Both Singapore and Bengaluru are strong business and tourism hubs and attract significant passenger traffic.  It gives us pleasure to introduce a direct flight on Singapore-Bengaluru route which will save flyers upto three hours of travel each way. We have been witnessing an encouraging traffic to Singapore from the cities in the south of India. There is a large Indian diaspora that resides in Singapore and regularly travels to their home to connect with their heritage and loved ones. Increased to and fro flights will not only boost tourism but also provide an affordable fare and a superior travel experience to flyers.”

According to the data released by DGCA, passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-April 2017 were 364.13 lakhs as against 309.35 lakhs during the corresponding period of the previous year, thereby registering a growth of 17.71. The Passenger Load Factor (PLF) for the month saw a considerable increase because of the beginning of the holiday season, with SpiceJet recording the highest PLF of 93.4 per cent as against 91.4 per cent in March. The On-Time Performance (OTP) for Vistara was the highest (87.4 per cent).

GoAir starts two additional flights out of Pune. Effective May 19, the airline will start daily flights from Pune to Bengaluru and Kolkata. The airline will now provide non-stop connectivity from Pune to Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Nagpur, Delhi, and Kolkata. The city of Pune and state of Maharashtra both play an important role in GoAir’s network. The new routes aim at connecting Pune across its network and providing passengers flexible options in planning their travel.