Jet Airways passengers, whose flight is cancelled, will not be able to travel with Air India and Vistara, as the full-service carriers have cut cordial agreements with the airline. Both Air India and Vistara have cancelled the Flight Interruption Manifest (FIM) agreement and Interline Ticketing Agreement Facility with Jet Airways. This move comes after 15 of Jet Airways’ flights were grounded because of non-payment to lessors, and the airline had to cancel many flights for the same reason. Under an FIM agreement between two airlines, when any schedule change happens in any of the airline in the alliance, the other airline accommodates those stranded passengers on their airline. The FIM, in such a situation, acts like a substitute ticket for the stranded passenger. As a result, the affected airline reimburses the said amount of the ticket to the other airline. Even Vistara has reportedly ended its interline ticketing agreement facility with Jet Airways. Because of this facility, Jet Airways could book their passengers on a Vistara flight at a pre-determined price.

GoAir has launched four new flights between Kannur International Airport (CNN) and Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH), connecting the two cities with flights operating every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. A statement released by the airline revealed that the inaugural flight from Kannur to Abu Dhabi landed on March 2. Jeh Wadia, Managing Director, GoAir, said Abu Dhabi was the airline’s fourth international destination after Phuket, Male and Muscat, and 28th destination sequentially. “GoAir is delighted to partner with Abu Dhabi Airports. It is heartening to note that both GoAir and Abu Dhabi Airports were established in 2006 and are celebrating 13th anniversaries this year,” he said. Bryan Thompson, CEO, Abu Dhabi Airports, said, “India is a key travel market for Abu Dhabi International Airport and we are always eager to strengthen our connectivity to the Indian subcontinent, enhancing further our services extended to our dear customers.”

SpiceJet has announced commencement of flights to Veer Surendra Sai Airport in Jharsugudam Odisha from Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata under the UDAN scheme from March 31. “SpiceJet is delighted to provide direct air connectivity from Jharsuguda, one of Odisha’s biggest manufacturing hubs and a top investment destination, to key metro cities and beyond. We will launch daily direct flights on the Jharsuguda-Delhi, Jharsuguda-Hyderabad and Jharsuguda-Kolkata sectors from March 31,” said Ajay Singh,CMD, SpiceJet. Starting the booking of flights on Wednesday, the budget carrier also announced introductory promotional fare starting Rs3,701 all-inclusive on Delhi-Jharsuguda, Jharsuguda-Delhi and Jharsuguda-Hyderabad, Hyderabad-Jharsuguda routes, and Rs2,560 all-inclusive on Jharsuguda-Kolkata and Kolkata-Jharsuguda routes. The Veer Surendra Sai Airport is Odisha’s second biggest and the only one to handle civil commercial operations after the Bhubaneswar Airport. According to SpiceJet, it is the first carrier to connect Jharsuguda with Delhi and Hyderabad. With the addition of these flights, SpiceJet will be operating 29 daily flights under UDAN. At present, it operates 23 flights under UDAN.

After emerging the single largest bidder to operate and upgrade five airports up for privatisation by Airport Authority of India (AAI), the Adani Group has also won rights for Guwahati International Airport, which takes the group’s tally to manage six airports. By quoting Rs 160 as per passenger fare for the airport, the group has emerged as the highest bidder pipping state-backed National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) by a margin of Rs 5. With this, Adani Group has won bids to operate all six airports- Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangalore, Trivandrum, Lucknow and Guwahati. The government last year put up these six AAI-run airports for privatisation under the public private partnership mode. A total of 32 technical bids were received from 10 companies to operate the six airports.

Enterprising Knot of Travel & Tourism Associates (EKTTA), organised its first annual convention in Bhubaneswar, with an aim to develop local tourism and bring forward the unexplored destinations of the state to the limelight. The event was inaugurated by the Chief Guest, Priyadarshi Mishra, MLA, Bhubaneswar North and Guest of Honour, Aruna Mohanty, Padma Shri awardee and renowned Odissi Exponent, Utpal Kumar Pati, Joint Director, Odisha Tourism and Sarat Kumar Lenka, Nodal Officer, IITTM. Addressing at the inaugural ceremony, Sanjay Kumar Mohanty, President EKTTA recounted the journey of the association and briefed about the activities and initiatives it has taken to help its members and the tourism fraternity. The convention was aimed to bring all the stakeholders of the tourism together at once stance with a motive to develop the concept of MOS (Man, on Spot) and WOS (Woman on Spot) keeping the local representatives at focus. EKTTA further aims to spread the importance of Odisha Tourism worldwide and develop new points and ideas to create a proper mechanism and channel for tourism management.

The ‘FB Travel Report’ commissioned by KPMG, Facebook and Nielsen suggests that nearly 90 per cent of hotel bookings in India are expected to be mobile-influenced by 2022, while nearly half of the hotel bookings in 2022 are expected to be Facebook-influenced, both nearly three times their current levels. This growth is expected to be driven on the backdrop of the swell in the traveller pool from an emerging middle class, niche experience-seeking consumers and increase in OTA bookings through mobiles in the five years between 2017 and 2022. Brands, therefore, have a USD 12 billion worth of incentive to re-look at their marketing strategies and adapt to the fast-evolving mobile-first internet economy of India.

An HVS report titled ‘Hotels in India: Trends and Opportunities’ forecasts over 30,000 branded hotel rooms to be developed in the country over the next three years, taking the total anticipated branded supply to 1,49,276 rooms by 2021-22. The highest percentages of supply actively under development are in Chennai (94 per cent), followed by Hyderabad (89 per cent) and Bengaluru (72 per cent). The mid market segment continues to dominate the new supply pipeline accounting for 44.1 per cent of the proposed rooms.

In a bid to promote the Government’s Digital India initiative, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has launched its own payment aggregator system, IRCTC iPay. With the new launch, IRCTC will have full control of the payment system because of its direct relationship with acquiring banks, card networks and other partners. The exclusive digital payment gateway will provide an improved online digital payment convenience and ease of doing business to passengers availing online travel related services through the IRCTC website, revealed an IRCTC statement. “With the launch of IRCTC iPay, the passengers will not need any third-party platforms as the IRCTC iPay provides payment options like credit card, debit card, UPI – Unified Payment Interface, International Card. The option of IRCTC prepaid card cum wallet, auto debit shall also be available shortly,” the statement said. This will help reduce the gap between IRCTC and banks which will eventually lead to substantial reduction in payment failures. Moreover, in case an online transaction is unsuccessful or some other error occurs, IRCTC can directly get in touch with the bank instead of relying on an intermediate source which usually delays the process.

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, signed a long-term management agreement with Panchshil Corporate Park to launch The Ritz-Carlton, Pune, expected to open in 2019 with 198 rooms.  The company also announced The Ritz-Carlton, Mumbai, which slated to debut in 2020 with 238 rooms. Its debut will mark the brand’s second property in India and is one of three Ritz-Carlton hotels in the pipeline for the country. The Ritz-Carlton brand entered India in 2013 with the launch of The Ritz-Carlton, Bangalore.

Vistara has added Dibrugarh to its network, making it the 24th destination for the airline, and its second destination in Assam after Guwahati. The flights will start from April 3, 2019, and will connect Dibrugarh and Bagdogra with daily direct flights between the two cities, while also connecting Dibrugarh and Delhi with convenient same aircraft one-stop flight via Bagdogra. Passengers flying from Dibrugarh can also take convenient connections via Delhi to Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune. Dibrugarh, known as the ‘Tea City of India’, is the nerve centre of industry, communication and healthcare of the upper Assam region, and is also the emerging communication and industrial hub of Northeast India. The new service will offer business and leisure travellers more choices as well as the option of three classes of service to choose from, including India’s only Premium Economy class. Sanjiv Kapoor, Chief Strategy & Commercial Officer, Vistara, said, “At Vistara, our aim is to bring ‘the new feeling of flying’ to more business and leisure travellers across the country, and we are pleased to add Dibrugarh to our growing network. Hot on the heels of our announcement of service to Raipur, this announcement of service to Dibrugarh is the second in a series of flight additions Vistara has planned starting this summer.” Travellers from Dibrugarh travelling to and from international destinations via Delhi will also benefit from seamless same-terminal international transfers at Delhi’s T3, from where Vistara operates.