Category Archives: Aviation

France will introduce a new charge on plane tickets from next year, with revenue used to fund environment-friendly alternatives, informs the country’s transport minister- Elisabeth Borne. She says, “The “ecotax” costing between 1.50 euros ($1.7) and 18 euros ($20) will apply to most flights departing from France.” The only exceptions will be for domestic flights to Corsica and France’s overseas territories, and connecting flights that pass through France. It will not apply to flights arriving in France. Air France has strongly disapproved of this announcement. According to a recent statement by Air France- “This new tax would significantly penalise Air France’s competitiveness, at a time where the company needs to strengthen its investment capacity to more rapidly reduce its environmental footprint, notably as part of its fleet renewal policy. This measure would be extremely penalising for Air France, of which 50% of its flights are operated out of France, and notably for its domestic network, where losses amounted to above 180 million euros in 2018. In addition, last month, the government had ruled out taxation at national level due to the unfair competition that this would cause.” The statement further reads- “The government’s decision is all the more incomprehensible as this new air transport tax would reportedly finance competitive modes of transport including road transportation and not the energy transition in the air transport sector. Such a transition could have been facilitated by supporting the implementation of sustainable biofuel industries or disruptive innovations. The Air France group is committed alongside all the industry players to reducing its CO2 emissions by 50% by 2050, in accordance with the Paris climate agreement objectives. Air France has been contributing to the European Union’s …

Air France-KLM will increase its passenger-carrying capacity between India and Europe by more than 25 per cent from this winter, a senior executive of the airline said. Jean-Noel Rault, the General Manager (Indian sub-continent), Air France-KLM, said,”If you ask about the commitment of Air France-KLM to the Indian market, as of winter, on the yearly basis, it would be over a million seats to India. Currently, we are over 800,000 seats. It would be over 25 per cent increase.” Similarly, Air France is also planning to increase its frequency on Delhi-Paris route from five to seven during the winter season this year. Source: PTI

SriLankan Airlines will enhance connectivity to India with new flights to Ahmedabad and Calicut. The operations will began in 2020. Vipula Gunatilleka, CEO, SriLankan Airlines said, “We wanted to enhance connectivity to Gujarat and hence will start a new connection to Ahmedabad. We were earlier operating to Calicut, but had to stop that for some reason and will restart this route again and hope to record growth in the region.”

Starting July 19, low-cost carrier GoAir will add seven new routes to its international network, which will include three new destinations – Bangkok, Dubai, and Kuwait. The daily flights, subject to final approval, will include Delhi-Abu Dhabi, Delhi-Bangkok; Kannur-Dubai, Kannur-Kuwait; Mumbai-Abu Dhabi, Mumbai-Bangkok, and Mumbai-Muscat services. GoAir has flown over 72 million passengers since its inception, and in the next two years the airline aims to touch the 100 million passengers mark. Speaking about the new routes, Jeh Wadia, Managing Director, GoAir, said, “I am very pleased to announce these planned launches which will strengthen GoAir’s presence in the Middle East and Southeast Asian countries. The network expansion is in sync with our vision to expand our footprint in strategic markets and to grow our business profitably. This time, we are entering new destinations – Kuwait, Dubai and Bangkok – and we intend to continue the momentum in the near future.”

The Aviation Ministry has been allocated Rs 4,500 crore in the Budget for the current financial year, which is 115 per cent less than Rs 9,700 crore that was given to it during 2018-19 fiscal. According to Budget documents released on Friday, the Centre has allocated Rs 480 crore for regional connectivity scheme UDAN, under which the “proposal is for revival of 50 airports and Viability Gap funding for North East Connectivity”. In 2018-19, the UDAN scheme was given Rs 441 crore. The Centre has allocated just Rs 1 lakh in 2019-20 for the “turnaround plan for Air India”, as compared to Rs 3,975 crore that was given to the national carrier in the last financial year, as per the documents. Source: PTI

In a recent update, Air India has suspended its operations from Delhi to Osaka, Kansai International Airport via Hong Kong. At present, there are three weekly flights from New Delhi to Osaka via Hong Kong- Friday, Monday and Wednesday and Boeing 787 Dreamliner is deployed on this route. Despite this move by Air India, Japanese airlines like ANA and JAL are planning to expand their Indian operations. ANA is planning direct daily on Tokyo-Chennai route from this October and JAL will start its daily to Bengaluru from Tokyo from 2020.

The recently released global passenger traffic results for May by The International Air Transport Association (IATA), revealed that after a fall in domestic RPKs in April (down 2.0 per cent YoY), following the demise of Jet Airways, growth in the India market rebounded sharply in May, with RPKs now an even 6.0 per cent higher than a year ago. While it will take some time for the market to adjust to the recent shock, the longer-term outlook for domestic India traffic remains positive.

The Netherlands and Canada has announced the launch of a pilot project for paperless travel between the two countries. Identity data that is usually stored on a chip on a passenger’s passport will instead be securely stored and encrypted on their mobile device. Passengers flying from Montreal to Amsterdam will be able to manage their encrypted identity data, consenting to share it with border authorities, airlines and others. It would be checked against biometrics at security checkpoints and airplane boarding gates “without the need for a physical passport,” said a statement by the World Economic Forum, which is leading the initiative. The Traveller Digital Identity project is to be tested internally throughout 2019, with the first end-to-end paperless journey expected to take place in early 2020, it said. “By 2030, international air travel is expected to rise to 1.8 billion passengers, up 50 per cent from 2016. With current systems, airports cannot keep up,” the World Economic Forum’s mobility chief Christoph Wolff said. This project offers a solution. By using interoperable digital identities, passengers benefit from a holistic system for secure and seamless travel. It will shape the future of aviation and security.” Air Canada and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, as well as airports in Montreal, Toronto and Amsterdam are taking part in the pilot, backed by technology companies Accenture, Vision Box and Idemia

Civil Aviation Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri said,”Out of the 705 routes awarded under RCS-UDAN version 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, 174 routes are operational till date.” As per the data presented by Puri, IndiGo has been awarded total 32 networks under UDAN scheme. Ministry of Civil Aviation had launched Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS)-UDAN scheme on October 21, 2016, to facilitate and stimulate regional air connectivity and making air travel affordable to the masses. The data said that SpiceJet has been awarded total 50 networks, and the budget carrier has started flight operations on just the half of them. Out of total 705 routes which have been awarded by the Centre under the regional connectivity scheme UDAN, 174 routes have become operational till date, Rajya Sabha was told on Wednesday. Based on their assessment of demand on particular routes, the airlines submit proposals at the time of bidding under UDAN scheme from time to time.

Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) launches its first direct flight linking India and Azerbaijan, from Baku to New Delhi. The chartered flights will be carried out every Tuesday and Friday. Regular flights will soon be added to further support the growth of tourism interest between the countries. Azerbaijan continues to expand its network with flights now to 40 destinations in 30 countries, including seasonal flights. The Caucasus country is currently on the cusp of a tourism boom as it welcomed a record number of in-bound visitors spending more than USD 2 billion in 2018, making it one of the fastest growing tourist destinations in the world. The new route will depart from the Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL) and arrive in Baku via Terminal 1 of the Heydar Aliyev International Airport. Air tickets can be booked online at www.azal.az and purchased through the offices of Azal’s official agents.