Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan recently informed that 30 additional daily flights would be introduced from the four airports in the state in the next three months. Five more flights would be introduced from Thiruvananthapuram to Delhi. The additional flights would be introduced during the next winter schedule of airlines companies, a release quoting the Chief Minister’s office (CMO) said. The assurance in this regard was made by the Union Civil Aviation Secretary Pradeep Singh Kharola at a meeting of CEOs of various airline companies called by the chief minister here in the backdrop of airline companies reducing flights from the Thiruvananthapuram airport. Vijayan pointed out that Kerala had reduced excise duty on ATF from 25 per cent to five per cent in 3 airports —  Kozhikode, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram, while in Kannur airport it was brought down to 1 per cent.

In a bid to ease the increasing passenger traffic at Indian airports, 10-15 aircraft are being added every month. Union Civil Aviation Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, said, “Today we have in air 690 aircraft. We are adding 10-15 aircraft per month. We are looking forward to a scenario when we will have 2,000 registered aircraft flying.” Puri further informed that Delhi Airport alone deals with 70 million passengers per annum and both Delhi and Mumbai Airport put together roughly deal with 34 per cent of passengers in the country. “When Jet Airways ceased operation we had 540 aircraft in the sky but a false narrative was floated that Indian skies will be adversely affected. We are adding new aircraft to maintain fleet as per the traffic requirement,” he concluded.

Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has announced that it will organise another edition of its Singapore Cruise Forum on 12 September 2019 in New Delhi. STB wants to continue tapping India’s outbound potential particularly when it involves cruising. GB Srithar, Regional Director (India, Middle East & South Asia), Singapore Tourism Board, says “We partner with stakeholders in the cruise industry to secure a vibrant pipeline of cruise ships and new cruise offerings in Singapore and tie that in with Singapore’s strong suite of leisure offerings to create attractive pre and post cruise-stay experiences in Singapore.”

The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for the month of July 2019 has been 1.74%, according to Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Air Asia recorded least cancellations at 0.25 per cent, followed by GoAir at 0.46 per cent. Vistara was at the third spot recording 1.27 per cent of cancellations, while IndiGo was fourth at 1.33 per cent. SpiceJet recorded 1.59 per cent cancellations, while Air India was at 4.14 per cent.

In the first half of 2019, Chinese arrivals to India recorded a Year-on-Year (YoY) increase of 21%, according to a report released by China Outbound Tourism Research Institute. The report also revealed that Chinese arrivals to India reached an all-time high at 282,195 in 2018. In the second half of 2018, the Year-on-Year increase reached 32%. Total arrivals from China to India in fourth quarter (Q4) of 2018 was 84,487, recording a share of 0.2%, as compared to number of Chinese outbound travellers to all destinations across the world in Q4 of 2018, which was 40,000,000

From January- July 2019, a total of 15,34,293 tourist arrived on e-Tourist Visa as compared to 12,68,077 during January-July 2018, registering a growth of 21.0%, according to Ministry of Tourism (MOT). During the month of July, 2019 total of 1,77,084 tourist arrived on e-Tourist Visa as compared to 1,58,337 during the month of July, 2018 registering a growth of 11.8%. The percentage shares of top 15 ports in tourist arrivals on e-Tourist Visa during July, 2019 were highest from New Delhi Airport (38.5%) followed by Mumbai Airport (17.4%), Chennai Airport (10.8%), Bengaluru Airport (10.4%), Hyderabad Airport (5.3%), Kochi Airport (4.9%), Tirchy Airport (2.9%), Kolkata Airport (2.4%), Ahmedabad Airport (1.6%), Trivandrum Airport (1.1%), Calicut Airport (1.1%), Amritsar Airport (1.0%), Jaipur Airport (0.5%), Dabolim (Goa) Airport (0.4%), Coimbatore Airport (0.3%) and Sonauli Land Checkpost (0.3%).

Bird Travels has been appointed as the GSA for Somon Air in India. Somon Air is a private airlines based in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Bird Travels will soon be launching online operations from Delhi to Dushanbe (subject to government approval).

Ashwani Lohani, CMD, Air India, revealed that Air India Group operates 159 aircraft and commenced new/increased frequencies at 83 domestic and 51 international destinations, and established 35 UDAN routes in the last 5 years. The revenues have grown from Rs.16,000 crore during 2012-13 to Rs.23,900 crore in 2017-18 while the passenger load factor has increased from 72% to 79.6%. Air India has record number of women pilots i.e. 11% of total strength of pilots compared to average 2-3% even in advanced countries.

The third season of the eight-city show Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) concluded with a resounding success in Pune city. The b2b session on August 30 saw a full house with exhibitors interacting with top agents from Pune and surrounding cities of Maharashtra like Nashik, Aurangabad and Kolhapur even. Speaking some of the new announcements, Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, GPS, said, “We are happy to announce the new dates for our next season of GPS Nagpur which is January 27-28, 2020. We have had a fantastic 2018 and we will soon announce our dates for EcoConnect for all four cities of Jaipur, Indore, Guwahati, and Vizag. We have also announced an exciting Edwin with Trulyy India to Rajasthan and Gujarat in December 2019. After that we will do Edwins to Oman and Zanzibar. “

The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has said that it will make body scanners mandatory at all major airports in next one year. It has also said that all airport across the country will have body scanners in the next two years. The BCAS is an attached office of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the regulatory authority for civil aviation security. A full-body scanner is a device used to scan an individual’s body for security screening without making any physical contact. A full-body scanner is a device used to scan an individual’s body for security screening without making any physical contact. However, passing through the body scanner for the passengers will be purely voluntarily and those with implants, medical conditions, pregnant women will be frisked manually and through metal detectors. “Since the nature of threat is changing a lot of technological upgrade is happening in terms of aviation security. We have ordered installations of body scanners as normal scanners cannot detect trace of plastic explosives and other threat material,” said Jyoti Narayan, Joint Director General, BCAS. He added that radiation detection systems have already been launched to check cargo for CBR and plastic explosives. The official said that the BCAS is taking several other steps to ensure smooth movement of passengers at the airports without risking security. For instance, new CTX machines are being installed at airports to prevent passengers from taking out laptops and liquid from hand baggage during security scan.