Category Archives: Aviation

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.

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.

Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister, Civil Aviation, along with Jayant Sinha, Minister of State, Civil Aviation, have released the passenger charter. If a domestic flight is expected to be delayed by more than six hours, the airline would offer an option of ‘alternate flight’ to the passenger within that time, or it will refund the full price of the ticket. The charter also stated that if the passenger is informed of a flight cancellation less than two weeks prior to departure, the airline has to give an alternate flight to passenger or refund the ticket completely. In fact, at the time of booking, the airline has to clearly indicate the amount of refund money that will be given to passenger in case of cancellation. In case a passenger is denied boarding due to over booking of a flight, the passenger shall not hold the airline liable for compensation in case he was given an alternate flight within one hour of original flight’s departure. The charter also states that passengers can cancel tickets without having to pay any amount within a day of the booking and also claim enhanced compensation for loss of baggage from airlines. However, the new charter states that zero cancellation charge won’t apply if the tickets are booked less than seven days before the scheduled departure time of the flight.      

Amidst escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, Air Canada temporarily suspended its flight services to India, following a decision by the Pakistan government to close its airspace. Air Canada cancelled one flight to Delhi from Vancouver, while another flight en-route to India returned to Toronto. Qatar Airways issued a statement asserting that due to the ongoing situation between India and Pakistan, its flight over the airspace of these two countries may experience delays due to rerouting. While Vistara issued a statement about the cancellations of flights on Amritsar, Srinagar, Chandigarh and Jammu; Singapore Airlines also released a statement about its flight delays. A Dubai-bound Jet Airways was asked by Pakistan ATC to return to Delhi. Flight operations across eight airports in Amritsar, Pathankot, Srinagar, Jammu, Shimla, Dharamshala, Kullu and Leh were shut briefly. However, the airports got operational after a few hours. As many as 47 flights were cancelled from Delhi airport, 25 were departures and 22 arrivals. Also, eight arrivals and eight departure flights were cancelled from the Mumbai Airport. Source: ANI  

The Ministry of Civil Aviation, in association with Airports Authority of India and Confederation of Indian Industry, has organised ‘Aviation Conclave 2019’ with an overarching theme of ‘Flying for All’ in Delhi. The conclave deliberated upon taking the government’s agenda to bring new aviation business to India, in particular, drones systems, manufacturing of aircraft in India, financing and leasing of aircraft from India by Indian and foreign airlines, transforming Indian airports into next-gen aviation hubs, and unleashing the air cargo potential by integrating every village of India in global value chains. Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister for Civil Aviation, stated that realising the government’s vision of making ‘Flying for All’ a reality underpins the government’s commitment to bring about a veritable revolution in the Indian aviation sector. “This conclave is about the future of Indian aviation – it bringing together industry leaders, government and regulators for setting the tone and propelling us to realise our Vision 2040”, he stated. Over 30 industry leaders deliberated across five key sessions covering the Drone-Ecosystem Policy Roadmap, Roadmap for Manufacturing Aircraft and associated equipment, including Regional Transport Aircraft in India, Project Rupee Raftaar- Aircraft Financing and Leasing from India, National Air Cargo Policy, and Mission to transform Indian Airports into Next-Gen Aviation Hubs. The deliberations threw up key catalysts to fast track the holistic growth of the passenger, cargo and MRO sectors. Commenting on the objectives of the conclave, Jayant Sinha, Minister of State of Civil Aviation said, “With more than a hundred commercially-connected airports, aviation is now central to the lives of Indians. We are committed to growing the industry by encouraging and opening new segments. I am confident that this conclave with its …

The Adani group has won the bid to operate five out of six airports put up for privatisation by the government. It was the highest bidder for the Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Lucknow, Mangaluru and Jaipur airports, a senior official of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said. The bid for the Guwahati airport will be opened on February 26. AAI chose the winner on the basis of “monthly per-passenger fee”. The official said the bids put by Adani group were “very aggressive” as compared to other bidders. The five airports would be handed over to Adani group after completion of formalities, the AAI official said. A total of 32 technical bids were received from 10 companies to operate six airports currently under AAI’s management. In November last year, the government had cleared a proposal for managing six AAI-run airports on public-private partnership (PPP) basis. The Ahmedabad and Jaipur airports received seven bids each. Those at Lucknow and Guwahati received six bids each. Mangaluru and Thiruvananthapuram received three bids each. The move to manage the six airports on PPP basis, according to AAI, is part of an initiative to provide world-class infrastructure and services to stakeholders. Source: PTI

IndiGo is set to begin direct daily operations to Istanbul from Delhi and later from Ahmedabad along with other destinations. This was revealed by Emin Çakmak, Chairman, Turkish Indian Tourism Council, at a Turkish delegation meet held in Delhi on February 25. He says, “We are expecting a growth of 25-30 per cent from the Indian market by the end of this year. We have a great co-operation between the tourism and trade industry of the two countries. The potential is huge and now that can be released as more seats will be made available soon.”

According to a recent report by DGCA, Passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan 2019 were 125.08 lakhs as against 114.65 lakhs during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 9.10%. However, the passenger load factor in the month of Jan 2019 has shown decreasing trend compared to previous month due to the end of tourist season.

Japan Airlines and Vistara airlines have entered a codeshare partnership that will open up more routes between India and Tokyo. With the signing of this agreement, Vistara becomes the only codeshare partner for Japan Airlines in India. The sale of tickets open on 26 February 2019 on all channels and major GDS systems, for travel from 28 February 2019. As part of the agreement, Japan Airlines will add its ‘JL’ designator code to approximately 32 Vistara-operated flights each day across India covering seven Indian cities, namely Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune. JAL and Vistara already have an interline/through check-in partnership and the two airlines had signed a Memorandum of Understanding in September 2017¹ to pursue commercial opportunities together. Commenting on this key partnership, Mr. Sanjiv Kapoor, Chief Strategy & Commercial Officer, Vistara said: “We’re delighted to further strengthen our partnership with Japan Airlines with this codeshare agreement, which is a step that underlines our commitment of partnering with some of the leading airlines in the world and of putting Vistara, India’s best airline, on the global map. This partnership helps us offer greater convenience and variety of choice to customers with a comprehensive network, as well as the opportunity of welcoming travellers from Japan and beyond to experience Vistara’s award-winning hospitality and service. We’re confident that our respective customers will truly enjoy the shared benefits of this partnership between two airlines committed to being amongst the best service providers on the ground and in the sky.” “The number of passengers traveling between Japan and India has increased over time,” said Mr. Hideki Oshima, Executive Officer, Japan Airlines. “By strengthening the partnership with Vistara, we will be able …