The recent grounding of aircraft of the Indian aviation industry has hit its total capacity, resulting in increased airfares and more inconvenience to the passengers, thereby affecting passenger traffic growth. According to Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency of India (ICRA), 98 of the total 670 aircraft in the industry have been grounded. These include 86 aircraft (75% of total fleet) of Jet Airways grounded due to non-payment of lease rentals to the aircraft lessors owing to its liquidity problems, and 12 aircraft (16% of total fleet) of SpiceJet grounded as required by a regulatory directive post technical issues reported with the flight control software of the Boeing 737 Max (B737 Max) aircraft. Elaborating further, Kinjal Shah, Vice President and Co-Head, Corporate Sector Ratings, ICRA, says, “These groundings have impacted ~15% of the total industry capacity. The consequent flight cancellations have resulted in ~30-40% increase in airfares over September 2018 to March 2019. However, India being a high price sensitive market, this has impacted the domestic passenger traffic growth from October 2018 onwards, with the Q3 FY2019 Y-o-Y growth reduced to 12.4%, as against the H1 FY2019 Y-o-Y growth at 19.8%. In fact, the domestic passenger traffic growth in January 2019 reached a 53-month low of 8.9% Y-o-Y, and February 2019 was further lower at 5.6% Y-o-Y. The passenger traffic growth for March 2019 is expected to be lower than that in February 2019. Moreover, these issues have raised concerns on passenger safety.”

In a recent report by JLL, Rajasthan is the leading state in brand signings and Goa leads in hotel openings in Q4 2018. International hotel operators dominated signings over domestic operators with the ratio of 57:43. Importantly, 25% of new signings are conversions of old hotels.

Justa Hotels & Resorts is all set to open a new property in Greater Kailash, New Delhi. The hotel would be a design hotel with a new concept, reveals Rohit Katyal, National Sales Head, Justa Hotels & Resorts. “The new hotel will have 30 rooms and it will be a design hotel. It would be on the lines of our property in Chennai, but not similar. It will be a modern property with an international feel to it. We will be opening the property in winter 2019.” The brand already has a property in the same vicinity. Last year. Justa Hotels & Resorts opened two properties. First was Justa Sajjangarh Spa Resort, Udaipur with 63 Keys close to Biodiversity Park. The other was to sign up Justa Atrio Resort in Delhi in close vicinity to Gurgaon and Aerocity. It was the first hotel for the brand on management contract in Delhi.

Dubai International Airport’s (DXB) runway will be closed for repair work from April 16 to May 30. Owing to this, Air India and Air India Express have announced a change in airport for some of their flights during the runway renovation period in Dubai International Airport. Some of the flights will be affected during the Dubai runway closure and operate out of the Sharjah International Airport. Affected flights are- AIR INDIA: Daily direct flights from Mumbai (AI 983) and Chennai (AI 906) to Dubai, daily flights in the route Visakhapatnam/Hyderabad/Dubai/Hyderabad/Visakhapatnam (AI 951/952) and the Bengaluru/ Goa/Dubai/Goa/Bengaluru flights on Thursday and Sunday (AI 993/994) AIR INDIA EXPRESS: (IX 813/814), (IX 383/384) — daily flights from and to Mangalore, IX 141/142 (Delhi/Dubai/Delhi on Sunday), and IX 435/434 (Kochi/Dubai/Kochi on Sunday). (Source: Gulf News)

The Association of Domestic Tour Operators (ADTOI) has recently opened its Northeast Chapter in Guwahati. Rajesh Arya, Vice President, ADTOI, says, “Recently we opened our 10th chapter in the Northeast. Further, we are likely to open two more chapters shortly after the elections- Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The timeline we are looking at is, July-August. Also, the convention is due this year, which we will conduct in August or September, most likely.

Karnataka Tourism will be organising Karnataka International Travel Expo 2019 from August 25-27 in Bengaluru. The travel expo will feature around 350 international and domestic buyers interact, network and do business with exhibitors and stakeholders from the state. The event is supported by major travel trade and hospitality associations such as ADTOI, ATOAI, IATO, TAAI, SKAL, FICCI, Karnataka Tourism Forum, Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Association of India (FHRAI), among others. Sharing details, Kumar Pushkar, MD, KSTDC and in charge Director, Karnataka Tourism said, “Karnataka International Travel Expo 2019 or as we call KITE in short, has been one of the long-standing demands of our private stakeholders in tourism. The need was to conduct a travel show for showcasing Karnataka on the international platform immediately. This year, we have planned to host the show on 25-27 August. The two-day show will mainly feature B2B roadshow and meetings between buyers and sellers, where 100 hosted international 250 hosted domestic buyers would be coming to Bengaluru to network, interact and do business with all our stakeholders. There will be post—fam tours for buyers as well. The show will help tourism achieve new heights in Karnataka and build relationships across the world.”   Karnataka International Travel Mart aims to create a platform that will offer the perfect environment for the like-minded people to interact and do business together. The show promises to provide an opportunity to tap into this market by bringing a forum of exceptional one-to-one business meetings.

According to a recent report by HVS ANAROCK, international operators are continuing to grow unabated, building larger format of hotels compared to majority of their domestic peers who continue to sign much smaller inventory hotels. In 2018, international hotel operators also signed more hotel keys than their domestic peers.

Mazda Travel has partnered with APT to offer their Canada & Alaska tour and cruise programs exclusively to Indian travel agents. Mernoz Shastri, Director, Mazda Travel, says, “We are well-known as the India GSA for the Rocky Mountaineer. It was only logical that we partner with APT who have over 90 years history as Australia’s largest and most successful tour operator. Their award-winning Canada and Alaska tours make Mazda Travel a one-stop shop for Indian agents wanting to offer their clients the trip of a lifetime to this beautiful part of the world.” APT offers unique inclusions in their fully-inclusive programs that include ‘Freedom of Choice’ dining where guests are free to choose when, where and who they dine with from multi-choice menus in a variety of restaurants. ‘Freedom of Choice’ sightseeing allows them to select the activity that best suits their interest from a comprehensive range of options, along with guaranteed view rooms at Fairmont hotels and Resorts, luxurious Wi-Fi equipped coaches and the best tour directors in the business.   Another feature of the APT range is the inclusion of a seven-night Inside Passage Cruise on Holland America Line or Princess Cruise ships. Craig James, Sales Manager, APT, says, “We always have the cruise at the end of your land tour, it’s a highlight amongst many great experiences and it is wonderful to enjoy the land tour but still have the spectacular cruise to look forward to.” APT tours have no hidden extra costs or optional excursions.  All tipping, round-trip airport transfers, porterage, port charges and more are all included in the commissionable price.   Explaining why Mazda Travel chose to partner with APT, Shastri says, “I spend …

Radisson Hotel Group opened seven new hotels in India in 2018, and the group is on track to reach the landmark of opening its 100th hotel in India this year. New hotels set to open within the next 12 months include India’s first Radisson RED hotel, located in Mohali. The group is also planning to debut its Radisson Collection, which is in the luxury space above Radisson Blu. Zubin Saxena, Managing Director and Vice President Operations, South Asia, Radisson Hotel Group, says, “We are looking at launching Radisson Collection brand in the near future. We are actively in discussions for various sites in India for this. We would love to have the Radisson Collection brand as a palace in Rajasthan, or a high-end resort in Goa, or even a city hotel in Bengaluru with a large convention centre. The brand has a large appeal and we see it being successful in various formats across tier I markets, tier II markets as well as resort locations. Once we have the right location and partner for this, we will announce it,”

TPConnects, a new generation global travel technology provider to the airlines and travel sellers, has announced that TPConnects was granted “ONE Order Capable” status as an Order Management System for its ONE Order-based solution, under the ONE Order Certification Program. This certification recognizes that TPConnects ONE Order-based solution, “Offer and Order Management System” supports deployments using Accounting and Delivery capabilities for Flights and Ancillaries whose schemas are compliant with the standard ONE Order message schema, version 18.2. ONE Order is an IATA messaging standard that aims to modernize reservation systems by combining passenger information currently held in different systems into one record. The IATA ONE Order program will simplify airline reservation and accounting systems by gradually phasing out Passenger Name Records widely known as PNRs, Electronic Tickets (ETKTs) and Electronic Miscellaneous Documents (EMDs) and replacing them with modern “internet-era” Order records. ONE Order extends the capability of the Order Management System and complements IATA New Distribution Capability Standard (NDC). This gives airlines the ability to see the passenger’s full travel experience, making it easier to provide specific services and personalized experiences for travelers to purchase. Rajendran Vellapalath, Chief Executive Officer, TPConnects said “We are pleased to be one of the first travel technology provider to achieve IATA One Order recognition. Along with IATA NDC highest level certification the ONE Order designation solidifies the great progress made by TPConnects Offer and Order Management solution in helping airlines reduce complexity and become better retailers While the NDC based Offer Management Solution of TPConnects is maturing with different airlines customizing the product as per their business requirements, our main focus recently has been to encompass the implementation of retail industry standard Order Management …