Category Archives: Aviation

Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA) has launched direct service between Chennai and Tokyo. With the new service, Chennai has become the first city in South India to have the flight connectivity to the Narita International Airport, Tokyo. The Chennai-Narita connect will operate thrice a week on Friday, Sunday and Wednesday, AAI said.

The Kalaburagi (Gulbarga) airport in North Karnataka is ready and the state government is trying to get Prime Minister Narendra Modi to inaugurate it. The airport was earlier proposed to begin operations from November 1 but has been delayed as a lot of permission has to be sought from many departments, told Umesh Jadhav, Kalaburagi Member of Parliament.

Mumbai airport has announced its expansion of existing flight frequency to the United Kingdom with Virgin Atlantic. The added flight frequency in the BOM-LHR route that began operations from 28th October 2019 to collectively boost CSMIA’s passenger traffic by 27%. Additionally, CSMIA also inaugurated the launch of Air India’s flights to Kuwait and Columbo on 27th October 2019

The Hahn Air Group has announced the launch of a new company—Hahn Air Technologies, which will provide distribution services to airlines that are looking to expand their indirect ticket sales. It will also be an innovation centre and think tank for the Hahn Air Group by exploring and developing the potential of new distribution channels such as NDC, blockchain-based providers and mobile solutions. In fact, the first product of Hahn Air Technologies is X1-Air, which when used by airlines that have limited or no indirect distribution connectivity, can immediately make their flights available in various sales channels. Aside from interfaces with major GDS, such as Amadeus and Sabre and soon Travelport, the service package of Hahn Air Technologies and X1-Air includes scheduling, fare filing, messaging, inventory management as well as booking, ticketing and settlement. More GDSs will be added to the service in the near future. The first partner airlines to use the services of Hahn Air Technologies are Air Panama (7P) from Panama, ASL Airline France (5O) from France, Azur Air Ukraine (QU) from Ukraine, Jam Airlink Express (J0) from Jamaica, Mayair (5G) from Mexico, Ulendo Airlink (W4) from Malawi, Westair Aviation (WV) from Namibia and Wildcat Touring (WC) from the United States. “Our products complete any airline’s distribution strategy. X1-Air allows low-cost airlines to outsource their complete indirect distribution in a simple, risk free and cost-efficient manner. For regional airlines we provide easy access to a truly global distribution network of over 100,000 travel agencies in 190 markets. For all airlines which only have direct distribution channels, X1-Air is the perfect first step to enter indirect distribution”, says Alexander Proschka, Head of Hahn Air Technologies,” says Proschka.

In a recent announcement, Ethiopian Airlines has revealed it will be flying four times a week on Addis Ababa-Bengaluru route, making the tech hub its third destination in India after Mumbai and New Delhi to have direct connectivity. The flight will operate on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday on Boeing 737-800 and the flight duration will be of 6 hours and 30 minutes. The flight will take off at 23:00 hours (GMT+3) and will land at Bengaluru airport at 8 am local time.

Senior IAS officer Arvind Singh has been appointed as the chairman of Airports Authority of India and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu will head the National Highways Authority of India as part of a major bureaucratic reshuffle effected by the Centre. Singh is at present working in his cadre-state Maharashtra. He has been appointed as the chief of AAI in the rank and pay of additional secretary, an order issued by the personnel ministry said.

IndiGo reports net loss of INR 10,620 million and EBITDAR of INR 2,564 million for the quarter ended September 2019. Mark-to-market losses on capitalised operating leases of INR 4,282 million and higher maintenance cost of INR 3,190 million significantly impacted profitability. The Company’s CEO, Ronojoy Dutta said, “In a historically weak quarter, we registered a negative profit before tax margin of 12.7% compared to 16% margin loss registered in the same quarter last year. While our revenue performance was much better during the quarter, the losses were accentuated by forex losses on operating lease liabilities created under IND AS 116, and re-assessment of accrual estimates for future maintenance cost. We remain focused on our growth plans and are expanding both domestically and internationally. We added 7 new domestic destinations and 6 new international destinations this past quarter and are looking to further grow our network profitably.”

Sanjay Kumar, Chief Operating Officer, AirAsia has said that AirAsia India will increase its fleet size to 29 aircraft by December-end, as it aims to increase frequencies to metro cities and prune unprofitable routes in the upcoming winter schedule. The airline currently has 23 aircraft and will induct two aircraft in the next fortnight. “We don’t want to spread too thin and operate at stations with only one flight or so. Our aim is to strengthen our network, especially in metros, and have multiple frequencies between two cities,” said Kumar. DGCA has approved the operation of 1,345 departures every week by AirAsia India in the upcoming winter schedule between October 27 2019 and March 28, 2020. This is an increase of 326 departures every week compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. This will lead to the airline increasing the frequencies of flights on busy metro routes, including Mumbai-Pune, New Delhi-Chennai, Delhi-Bengaluru, New Delhi-Hyderabad, Guwahati-New Delhi, Guwahati-Kolkata, Guwahati-Bengaluru, and New Delhi-Srinagar. AirAsia India operates 175 daily flights to over 20 destinations across the country, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

Invest India, the National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency, has revealed that India aims to become the third-largest aviation market globally by 2024. According to the report, India plans to revive its aviation infrastructure by redeveloping 200 airports and airstrips, thus creating numerous investment possibilities for global investors. The report also states that, Indian carriers plan to increase their fleet size to 1,100 aircraft by 2027.

Alitalia recently launched its B2B community platform, called ‘Alitalia Connect’, in Italy to offer personalised relationship between Alitalia and its B2B customers like travel agencies, companies and SMEs. Now, the Italian carrier is set to launch ‘Group Connect’, a web platform under Alitalia Connect in India on November 13. Group Connect is aimed to manage and speed up quotations and group bookings, revealed Nicola Bonacchi, Vice President, Leisure Travel Sales, Alitalia. Other prominent features of ‘Group Connect’ include requesting an offer, booking a group and having the quotation and the contract in real time, monitoring the contract terms and conditions, changing the reservation (increasing or decreasing the group) and entering passengers’ names in the system. The platform offers increased flexibility, allowing the agent to customise the conditions to be chosen based on customer’s characteristics and period.