Sanjay Kumar, who recently stepped down as COO of Air Asia India, will now be joining as Chief Strategy & Revenue Officer, IndiGo Airlines. Kumar was previously employed with IndiGo Airlines as Chief Commercial Officer till 2018, before his stint with Air Asia. With over 25 years of experience, Kumar has even worked with SpiceJet and erstwhile Sahara Airlines as well. The news has been confirmed by Kumar, who will reportedly be joining IndiGo very soon.

Lufthansa Group has chosen Google Cloud as a strategic partner to further improve its operational performance and minimise the impact of irregularities on its passengers. The idea is to build a platform that will suggest scenarios to return to a stable flight plan in the event of an irregularity so that passengers still arrive at their destinations as punctually and comfortably as possible. This will be done by merging data from various processes that are relevant for stable operations (for example aircraft replacement and maintenance as well as crew scheduling). “By combining Google Cloud’s technology with Lufthansa Group’s operational expertise, we are driving the digitisation of our operation even further. This will enable us to identify possible flight irregularities even earlier and implement countermeasures at an early stage,” said Detlef Kayser, Member of the Executive Board of the Lufthansa Group. For example, flights are sometimes delayed due to weather conditions such as snowfall and passengers might miss their connecting flights. In the future, it will be possible to offer faster rebooking possibilities across all four hubs for Lufthansa Group passengers thanks to systems based on artificial intelligence. “Through this collaboration, we have a significant opportunity to revolutionize the future of airline operations,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO for Google Cloud. “We’re bringing the best of Lufthansa Group and Google Cloud together to solve airlines’ biggest challenges and positively impact the travel experience of the more than 145 million passengers that fly annually with them.” A joint team of operations experts, developers and engineers from the Lufthansa Group and software engineers from Google Cloud will be developing and testing the appropriate platform. The test launch will take place in Zurich with SWISS.

The theme of the Indian delegation at FITUR will be ‘Finding the Incredible You’, revealed Rupinder Brar, Additional Director General, Tourism. The delegation will be led by Yogendra Tripathi, Secretary, Tourism. To be held from January 22-26, 2020, FITUR is an important market for India. Speaking about the same, Brar said, “Spain is an important market and is itself one of the top countries visited by Indians. So, these are occasions also for us to learn best practices of other counties that come into these events. We look forward to that. As far as showcasing India is concerned, the theme remains ‘Finding the Incredible You’. The idea behind the campaign is that there is so much within us that is not exposed and India is a place that allows you to visit the places and also discover yourself. I am sure that there is so much of spirituality and mysticism attached to India, along with the modernity that is a part of our lives now, we have a unique quality as a country. We are lapping up all the modern technologies, being a cutting edge nation and yet we are carrying along with it all our traditions that are coming to us from thousands of years. That is the USP of our country, and we are looking forward to showcasing that in FITUR also. The Indian delegation is being led by Secretary, Tourism, and he shall be accompanied by the officers of the departments, and the officers that are in Europe will also be part of the delegation.”

The Penang Convention & Exhibition Bureau (PCEB) launched its annual roadshow to India in Mumbai as part of the Penang Roadshow to India 2020. The objective is promoting Penang as the preferred destination for corporate and association meetings, conferences, and incentives, and leisure travel. Capitalising on Penang’s rising popularity in India, the Penang Roadshow to India will host, in each of the four cities, a B2B engagement session with participating Business Events and leisure travel buyers from India. Led by Hon. Yeoh Soon Hin, Penang State Minister for Tourism, Arts, Culture and Heritage, and Ashwin Gunasekeran, Chief Executive Officer of PCEB, the roadshow is supported by a Penang delegation of 14 partners, including hotels, destination management companies, attractions, professional conference organisers and event experts. Also accompanying the Penang delegation is Hon. Satees Muniandy, Penang State Assemblyman for Bagan Dalam. Also joining the roadshow is PCEB’s strategic airline partner, Malaysia Airlines. PCEB is also launching the Penang Specialist Programme designed for the Indian market. The Programme will equip select outbound travel, MICE, wedding and filming agencies with first-hand knowledge of Penang through a full day workshop conducted in each city concurrently with the B2B engagement session. Among the incentives that the Penang Specialists can qualify for are special incentive for group sales of 100 pax and above, famil opportunities to Penang, opportunities to attend PCEB’s training and networking programme in Penang and India, and much more. The certification of the Penang Specialist Programme is valid for three years upon which qualifying members will be invited for recertification. The workshop is conducted by Ms. Katharine Chua, the Managing Director of Penang’s Tropical Spice Garden. “The number of Indian travellers to Penang has …

Elaborating on their promotional plans this year, Amaresh Tiwari, Vice Chairman, ICPB said, “This year we are planning our roadshows just before IMEX and then we will be participating there. We will be taking the roadshows to London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and coming back to Frankfurt. We are also planning four domestic roadshows, the details for the same will be made available soon.

The second premium Tejas train has started plying between Ahmedabad and Mumbai, which was flagged off by Chief Minister of Gujarat, Vijay Rupani from Ahmedabad. It has started its commercial run, in line with the success of semi-high speed and fully air-conditioned Lucknow-Delhi Tejas Express. Passengers can book their tickets for the train exclusively on IRCTC website and its mobile app ‘Irctc Rail Connect’. There will be no booking at railway reservation counters. However, passengers can get their tickets booked through IRCTC authorised agents. The train will also be available for booking through IRCTC’s online travel portal partners. The fully air-conditioned train shall have two Executive Class Chair Cars having 56 seats each and Eight Chair Cars having capacity of 78 seats each. The total carrying capacity of the train will be 736 passengers.  The train will start its journey ex Ahmedabad in the morning at 06:40 hours and will reach Mumbai Central at 13.10 hours having scheduled commercial halts at Nadiad, Vadodara, Bharuch, Surat, Vapi and Borivali. For the return journey, the train will leave Mumbai Central at 15:40 hours and will reach Ahmedabad at 21:55 hours having scheduled halts at Borivali, Vapi, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara and Nadiad. Train will run on all days of the week except Thursday. Train fare will be dynamic in nature keeping in consideration the prevailing bus, taxi, rail and airfares. Train will have different series of fares for lean, busy and festive seasons. Further, train fares will be on point to point basis. There will be no tatkal quota or premium tatkal quota in the train. There will be only General Quota and Foreign Tourist Quota. Foreign Tourist Quota of 6 seats in …

Effective March 1, 2020, Qantas Airways Limited, flag carrier of Australia, will reduce the IATA BSP Travel Agency Commission to just one per cent for Qantas tickets issued in India. All Qantas tickets prior to March 1, 2020 will be eligible for the current 3% per cent IATA BSP Travel Agency Commission. The airline recently cancelled nearly one in ten flights on the busy Sydney-Melbourne corridor in the six months to November 2019, according to Australian Government statistics. The route is one of the busiest in the world and Qantas operates up to 46 return services a day at 15-minute frequencies in peak times.

In line with Hyve’s other Moscow exhibitions, MITT this year will be moving from its previous home of Expocenter to Crocus Expo – Eastern Europe’s largest exhibition venue. According to MITT’s Event Director Artem Chernyshov, the move will bring many advantages to help improve the show experience. He believes that with the move, a more developed infrastructure would enable visitors to enter efficiently without queues. There will be extensive places to rest and relax on the 2nd floor, which is a food court with plenty of cafés and restaurants. Also, there will be 35,000 free parking spaces. Large and spacious pavilions would allow the whole exhibition to take place in one pavilion, improving navigation for visitors and providing better stand locations for exhibitors. While Crocus’ distance from the city centre may be seen by some as a disadvantage, Artem shares, “We are prepared to possibly see fewer visitors in 2020, but those who need to be there will come. Our experience with other exhibitions that have already moved to Crocus suggests that targeted visitors will always attend. Our exhibition is trade-only, and we maintain this concept.”

Kutni Island Resort near Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh, has been inaugurated by Prahlad Singh Patel, Minister of State (I/C), Tourism, on January 18, 2020, reveals Rupinder Brar, Additional Director General (ADG), Tourism. Sharing details of the project, she said, “One of the most exciting projects that have been launched recently is the Kutni Island Resort, which is around 12 km from Khajuraho, using the fully-funded Swadesh darshan scheme of MOT. This project has been completed in 2.5 years and it’s on a reservoir made on the river that passes through Khajuraho. There are 10 double rooms. It’s a beautiful facility that has been created, and only takes about 25 odd minutes to get there. We want to encourage everybody to go there.”

The government has issued a travel advisory asking citizens to follow certain precautionary measures while visiting China in the wake of the outbreak of coronavirus. All travellers to China, especially to Wuhan city, have been advised to monitor their health closely. The advisory suggested avoiding close contact with people who are unwell or showing symptoms of illness, such as cough, runny nose among others. The travellers are advised to wear a mask if they have symptoms of respiratory problem. The advisory issued by the Union health ministry stated that even though the mode of transmission of the novel coronavirus is unclear as of now, those visiting China are advised to avoid travel to farms, live animal markets or where animals are slaughtered and refrain consuming “raw or under-cooked meat”.