Category Archives: Aviation

Indigo has started operating its domestic flights from the T2 terminal of Mumbai International Airport. Out of the 20 flights, nine originate from Mumbai to destinations such as Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Nagpur, Vadodara. Airline’s all other domestic flights will continue to operate from Terminal 1 and International flights from Terminal 2 of the airport. “As these new flights, will be operating from Terminal 2, Mumbai, please ensure you check your flight number and terminal before you leave for the airport,” IndiGo said in a statement. For Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Indore and Nagpur, IndiGo has planned to introduce two new flights. The airline will start operating 2 additional flight on Mumbai-Nagpur route from May 4 and 4 additional flight on Bengaluru-Mumbai- and Hyderabad-Mumbai route. With a fleet size of 218 plans, Indigo operates about 1,300 flights on a daily basis to 53 domestic and 17 international destinations.

The domestic market of India continues to perform strongly, again registering double digit growth over the year to February, according to International Air Transport Association (IATA). China and Russia topped the growth chart with 11.4 per cent and 10.1 per cent year-on-year growth rates respectively. This marks the 54th consecutive month of double-digit domestic RPK growth for India. A generally solid economic backdrop, combined with continued growth in the number of airport pairs have all contributed to this sustained growth performance.

Narrowbodies account for ¾ of the total current fleet, with widebodies contributing a further 10 per cent, as per a recent ‘Project Rupee Raftaar’ report by the Ministry of Civil Aviation. The remainder consists primarily of turboprops and regional jet aircraft. Reflecting the relative size of the domestic and international markets, the composition of the current inservice fleet is heavily tilted towards narrowbody aircraft. India, which has the third-largest aircraft order book (including wide-body and narrow-body aircraft) after the US and China, now has more narrow-body orders than China, CAPA India said in one of its reports.

To bring down flight cancellations and expand the airline’s international and domestic presence, SpiceJet has announced to induct 16 Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft on dry lease. The airline in a statement said, “SpiceJet will induct 16 Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft on dry lease and has applied to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to import the aircraft.Subject to regulatory approvals, the aircraft would begin joining SpiceJet fleet in the next ten days.” “The sudden reduction of aviation capacity has created a challenging environment in the sector. SpiceJet is committed to working closely with the government authorities to augment capacity and minimise passenger inconvenience,” said Ajay Singh, Chairman and MD, SpiceJet. Under dry lease, the lessor provides the airline with the aircraft but without any crew member, while under wet lease, the lessor provides the aircraft along with complete crew.

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.”

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)

AirAsia will start its inaugural Ahmedabad route – starting May 31, 2019, with special all-in promotional fares exclusively for AirAsia BIG members from Rs 4,999 one way. Guests can take advantage of the convenient flight schedule with early morning arrival and evening departure, which gives them more time to spend in Bangkok.  Ahmedabad is the ninth Indian destination for AirAsia Thailand (carrier code FD), after Kochi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, Visakhapatnam and Gaya (seasonal). Book from 9-21 April 2019 for travel between 31 May 2019 and 4 February 2020 on airasia.com or the AirAsia mobile app. AirAsia Thailand CEO Santisuk Klongchaiya said, “India is a strategic market for AirAsia and our focus is on further growing our international connectivity to the country. This new route will expand the travel opportunities for the people of western India, and we are confident that our unique combination of low fares and award-winning service will stimulate traffic on this underserved route and fuel tourism and economic growth.” AirAsia Thailand has recorded a positive load factor of up to 87 percent on its India routes, with guests travelling between Bangkok and existing destinations in India increasing 7% on-year, translating into economic benefits for both countries. Guests who wish to explore AirAsia’s network beyond Bangkok can make use of the convenient Fly-Thru service, which allows them to transit via Bangkok with baggage checked through from Ahmedabad to domestic destinations such as Chiang Mai, Phuket and Krabi, as well as other Asian cities like Singapore, Bali, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh and Tokyo.

Effective June 05, IndiGo will fly daily non-stop from Mumbai to both Jeddah and Abu Dhabi. Effective July 05, the airline will connect Mumbai with Dammam through daily direct flights (Subject to regulatory approvals). Additionally, IndiGo is temporarily adding approximately 20 new departures each from Mumbai and Delhi in a phased manner from April 15, 2019. This is an effort to make it easier for customers to find affordable fares during the busy season. William Boulter, Chief Commercial Officer, IndiGo said, “We are strengthening Mumbai as a key travel hub for domestic and international connectivity from India. We are pleased to announce Jeddah and Dammam as our 17th and 18th international destinations effective June 05, 2019 and July 05, 2019 respectively. Jeddah being the commercial capital and the gateway for Haj, Dammam being the growth centre in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi being a major cultural and commercial centre in UAE, are critical markets for strengthening our presence in the Middle-East. Mumbai is the commercial hub of India and we see great potential connecting the Middle-East with this city, further bolstering the extensive cultural, business and tourism links between India and the Middle East. With the addition of these new international flights and enhanced domestic frequency, we are committed to expanding our network to meet the requirements of both business and leisure travellers. It is our constant endeavour to provide flexibility of choice to our customers as IndiGo continues to offer on-time, affordable, courteous and hassle-free flying experience consistently.”

Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu is of the view that Aviation turbine fuel (ATF) should be brought under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime to ensure a level playing field for the domestic airline industry. He says, “Each state has a different tax. Due to this, the refuelling (for airlines) cost completely changes. We feel that it should be done. I hope the GST Council takes a call on that and we are pursuing this with the council continuously. “He said input costs should be competitive for any sector and the ministry has been of the strong view that the fuel should be brought under the GST regime.” (Source: PTI)

Expensive air fares as a result of capacity constraint and high fuel prices are expected to further decelerate India’s passenger growth numbers, experts opined. As per the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data, on a YoY basis, growth rate in February stood at 5.62 per cent to 1.13 crore, while it was 9.10 per cent in January and 11.03 per cent in December 2018. Even though, there has been a growth in passenger numbers on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the traffic on a sequential level has shown a negative trend. Even data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) showed a similar trend. The growth rate of India’s domestic air passenger volume — measured in revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) — slowed in February to 10 per cent from a rise of 12.4 per cent in January. Industry observers blamed the downward sequential growth trend on high air fares. According to experts, since March 14, passengers had to shell out high fares as several airlines cancelled operations for a number of reasons, including grounding of Boeing 737-MAX aircraft. During this period, some sectors continued to see a rise of more than 100 per cent in case of last minute bookings. “Indian aviation has seen a capacity constraint due to multiple reasons over last couple of months. The immediate impact of this reduction noted on fares was an average of 15-20 per cent hike in price,” said Sharat Dhall, COO (B2C) of Yatra.com. “While that acted as a deterrent for people who were looking to book air tickets in short notice, however, the traffic was not seen to be affected as the fares did moderate for people booking in advance,” he …