Category Archives: Aviation

US-based Delta Air Lines will restart its Mumbai-New York JFK non-stop, daily flight service from December 24, 2019. The airline is starting the flight after a decade as it used to fly this route till 2009. Its last flight in India, connecting Mumbai and Amsterdam, was in 2015. The relaunched flight will take off at 12.55 am from Mumbai on December 24, on a renovated Boeing 777-200LR aircraft and will land at New York’s JFK airport, 16 hours later. Jimmy Eichelgruen, Director- Sales for Africa, Middle East and Indian subcontinent, Delta Air Lines was in Mumbai recently to announce this. He said, “Delta’s return to India will ensure that Mumbai is even better connected to the United States. There will be 14 flights per week and the flying time will be 16 hours.” The airline has an existing interline agreement with Air India and has just established an interline agreement with Vistara. “We will first develop and establish out interline agreements with Indian airlines and once they are stabilized, we will explore codeshare,” Eichelgruen adds. Delta earlier had a codeshare agreement with Jet Airways which suspended operations in April 2019.

RwandAir has announced that effective January 1, 2020, the airline will cut down the IATA agent commission to 0% from the current 3%. Announcing a revision in its commission structure, RwandAir revealed that the 3% commission would only be effective till December 31, 2019, and starting 2020, there will be no commission for agents. The airline thanked the trade fraternity for their support.

Five unserved airports in Haryana, namely Bhiwani, Hisar, Karnal, Narnaul and Sirsa, are now available for bidding under UDAN 4.0, revealed Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA). The opening of these five airports would give a boost to regional connectivity and promote tourism opportunities in the state, claimed MoCA in a tweet recently. MoCA has opened bidding for many such airports in different states recently.  

AirAsia India has appointed Ankur Garg as its Chief Commercial Officer in place of Sanjay Kumar, who stepped down from the position last month. Garg was the Vice-president for revenue management, ancillary revenue and distribution for IndiGo. In his new role, Garg will be managing day-to-day commercial operations of AirAsia India, including network and revenue management, marketing & sales and cargo.

In its latest report, CAPA has forecast that Indian airlines will post a combined loss of $600 million and induct fewer aircraft in the current financial year. In June, CAPA reported that Indian carriers will post $500-700 million in profit. However, owing to weak results by IndiGo and SpiceJet, CAPA’s latest forecast reports losses by Indian carriers. IndiGo and SpiceJet posted losses of Rs 1,062 crore and Rs 462 crore, respectively, in the quarter ending September. According to CAPA, IndiGo will post an annual profit of $70-90 million, which is much lower that the $400-500 million forecast in June.  AirAsia India, Vistara, and Air India are also likely to post losses, while GoAir is expected to register a $25-30 million profit. CAPA estimates Air India to post a loss of $500 million this year.

According to the recent data released by Directorate General of Civil Aviation, passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-Nov 2019 were 1311.54 lakhs as against 1262.83 lakhs during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering annual growth of 3.86% and monthly growth of 11.18%. In the month of October, MoM growth was 3.98% which shows November has performed phenomenally well.

Jewar Airport will come up in 5,000 hectare area when fully constructed and is estimated to cost Rs 29,560 crore. Zurich Airport International AG will develop this airport on the outskirts of Delhi. The proposed airport is said to have six runways, at par with a few world’s largest airports like Chicago O’Hare International Airport and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The airport in Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Buddh Nagar district will be the third in the National Capital Region after Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport and in Ghaziabad’s Hindon.

Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has announced that, 20 airports are available for bidding under UDAN 4.0 in Maharashtra. These airports include Akola, Baramati, Darna Camp, Dhulia, Jath, Kawalpur, Latur, Osmanabad, Shirpur, Chandrapur, Deolali, Gondia, Karad, Kudal, Lonavla, Paltan, Waluj, Amravati, Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri. This will boost the regional connectivity and help promote tourism opportunities in these regions.

Virgin Atlantic has announced the introduction of their new Indian flying icon- Aria, which will feature on the side of their aircraft from 2020. Aria is the name of Sir Richard’s Great, Great, Grandfather’s wife who was from India. This forms part of a series that have been created to showcase the diverse range of men and women that represent modern Britain. Virgin Atlantic’s use of the Flying Lady was inspired by figureheads that have decorated ships since 16th century and the original version was inspired by the pin up girls made famous by Alberto Vargas in the 1930’s and 40’s and this move represents the changing face of one of Britain’s most loved brands. Sir Richard Branson, Founder, Virgin Atlantic, said, “India holds a very special place in our hearts and we are excited to be celebrating 20 years of flying here in 2020. We thought that the best way to celebrate this milestone would be by adding more choice of routes for our customers to fly directly between Mumbai & Delhi to London. We are committed to this market and will continue to invest and grow our operations at the same time as offering an unrivalled service for those choosing to fly with us to the UK and onto the US.’’ With the additional daily flight to Delhi and the newly launched Mumbai service, Virgin Atlantic will offer more choice to India than ever before. Together with Delta Air Lines, Virgin Atlantic will offer seamless connections between Delhi and New York JFK, Boston, Detroit and Atlanta via Heathrow.tgers

The Centre recently has initiated the process to setup six more airports in the new state of Telangana. Telangana’s only airport in Hyderabad is also used by Andhra Pradesh since both the states jointly share the capital for 10 years. Andhra Pradesh on the other hand has six operational commercial airports out of which three are international airports. The greenfield airports will be built by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) although the timeline for the same has not been decided yet. The state government has been pressing the issue of more air connectivity in the state. Last year, it has identified sites for setting up three airports and sought upgradation of three existing airstrips which have not been operational.