Category Archives: Aviation

Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s leading airline, is set to start thrice weekly operations to Chennai, India as of 2 July 2022. Chennai will join the vast Ethiopian network as a fourth destination in India after New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. Ethiopian started its service to India with a debut flight to New Delhi in 1966, just 20 years after the airline was founded. Ethiopian pioneered the air transport linkage between Africa and India. Recently, Ethiopian marked its 50th year anniversary of uninterrupted service to Mumbai. The flights to Chennai will be operated using B737-8 aircraft as per the below schedule. Flight number Effective Date Frequency Departure Airport Arrival airport Aircraft type ET  0692 02-Jul-22 1.3..6. ADD MAA ET  737 – 8 ET  0693 02-Jul-22 1.3.5.. MAA ADD ET  737 – 8               Ethiopian Airlines Group CEO, Mesfin Tasew said, “I am excited that we are getting closer to our customers with our signature service and global connectivity options. We have been connecting Asia and Africa for 55 years now facilitating trade between the two continents. The addition of Chennai as a fourth passenger destination in India is a testimony of our resilience and unwavering commitment to serve our customers in India and the continent at large. We will continue to serve India with enhanced frequency and more destinations in the future.” Ethiopian has been serving India without any interruption even during the pandemic cementing the longstanding bilateral relationship between the two countries. India is one of Ethiopian Airlines key destinations in the Asian continent and Ethiopian currently flies to three passenger and five cargo destinations with its enhanced services and modern fleet. In line with …

The UK-India market has recovered strongly from the COVID-19 pandemic. In the week commencing 16-May-2022, seat capacity in this market is at 94% of the equivalent week of 2019. This compares with a figure of 84% for the total Europe market and just 42% for the market between Europe and all of Asia Pacific. It is also ahead of the total UK market, which has recovered to 85%, and India’s international market, which is at 87% (although its domestic market is at 105%). After Jet Airways’ demise in 2019 the leading incumbents Air India, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic began to expand into the gap it left. The pandemic interrupted this, but the new entrant Vistara began operations in this market in 2020 and the incumbents have now resumed growth. The low cost long haul start-up ‘flypop’ could also soon be ready to enter, as too could another start-up: Hans Airways.

Nandivardhan Jain, CEO, NOESIS, has said, “If 80 new airports by 2025 come, then this will give a massive boost to the hospitality sector as there will be demand for 25,000 more hotel rooms in these markets. Subject to concerned authorities successfully managing to plan & build hospitality districts around these airports, the effective implementation of local tourism programs at these destinations will lead to an opportunity to create millions of job opportunities.”

Findings of a report on the aviation from Infomerics suggested that in India, single-aisle airplanes such as the 737 family will continue to drive growth in domestic and regional markets, such as short-haul flights from India to the Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions. Indian operators will need 1,960 new single-aisle airplanes over the next 20 years. Single-aisle airplanes cover 64 percent of the global passenger jet fleet, which is likely to rise to 68 percent in the next 8-10 years 

Buddha Air has started twice-a-week direct operations between Kathmandu and Varanasi. The flights have been resumed post-COVID and will be flying on Monday and Friday every week. On arrival of the first flight, Ministry of Tourism’s India Tourism Varanasi office welcomed the tourists with rose and anagavastra.

Ajay Singh, CMD, SpiceJet, has said that India with its size and being the fastest growing aviation markets in the world, needs to have its own hub and global carriers that can take Indians directly to destinations in Europe or the USA, so that we can bypass their hubs.

In its Global airline revenue forecast, Bain & Company have said that they don’t expect air traffic to return to pre-pandemic levels until the second quarter of 2025. “One notable shift in the global landscape is the link between Covid-19 infection rates and air traffic has become less linear; recently, infection rates have been rising in many countries, but travel volume (particularly inbound from other countries) now depends mostly on local Covid-19 policies,” stated the report.

Willie Walsh, Director General, IATA has said that international travel in first and business class is recovering faster than in economy, when it comes to international travel. “I think that points to a very important sector for the market which we call premium leisure and I expect premium to continue to recover quickly,” he said.

Nok Air has appointed DEX GROUP as its General Sales Agent (GSA) in India. Also, the Thai carrier will launch non-stop services between Thailand and India from winter 2022. Nok Air, will connect India to Thailand, via its hub at Don Mueang International Airport (DMK) in Bangkok. The new routes will be operated by state-of-the-art Airbus 737-800 with 189 seats

Further to the lifting of the Air Bubble Agreement in India and to the necessary governmental approval, Air France-KLM and IndiGo, India’s leading carrier, have implemented the extensive codeshare agreement announced in December 2021. With this partnership, Air France and KLM will ultimately offer their customers access to 30 new Indian destinations and a large number of round-trip combinations for both business and leisure purposes. Customers will be able to fly to the destination of their choice with one single booking. Flying Blue members will also be able to earn miles on all routes covered by this agreement. On departure from their respective hubs in Paris and Amsterdam, Air France and KLM already serve four destinations in India: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru. On departure from the multiple points in India, Air France and KLM will open up their global network of over 300 destinations to IndiGo customers, with more than 120 destinations in Europe and about 50 in the Americas. Henri de Peyrelongue, EVP Commercial Sales Air France-KLM stated: “We are very proud at Air France-KLM to be the first major European airline group to initiate cooperation with IndiGo. This codeshare agreement will allow us to increase our local footprint and to improve connectivity between India – one of the fastest growing markets – and the rest of the world, via our Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam-Schiphol hubs. For our customers this means an enhanced network with as many as 30 new destinations in India, as well as increased roundtrip possibilities for both business and leisure travel.” Sanjay Kumar, Chief Strategy & Revenue Officer, IndiGo said, “We are pleased to commence the partnership with one of the strongest European …