Category Archives: Aviation

To promote the flights to Amsterdam, together with CSIA Mumbai, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has installed an experiential activity at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport targeting the international flyers. The installation is made so thematically that the flyers can have a taste of ‘Mini Amsterdam’ during their transit time and before they board the flight from Mumbai. As Holland is known to be the biking capital of the world, KLM India has installed a cycling activity, which is a nice way for passengers to spend time while waiting to board their flights. The activity also gives a chance to the flyers to win goodies, airline discount vouchers, food coupons and much more. It is communicated via social media and will be live until end of June. From Mumbai, passengers fly on KLM’s latest Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, which has 30 World Business Class seats, 45 Economy Comfort seats and 219 Economy Class seats. Speaking about this activity, Max Smits, General Manager, Air France – KLM, Indian Sub-Continent said, “We are happy to collaborate with MIAL (Mumbai International Airport Limited) regarding this activity to boost the KLM presence out of Mumbai and inspire flyers to choose KLM for travel to Amsterdam and beyond. KLM started its direct service from Mumbai to Amsterdam last year during winter 2017 with three weekly flights. For the winter schedule of 2018, we will be adding another flight making it as four weekly flights from Mumbai.”

Jet Airways has commenced an additional flight between Delhi and Bangladesh capital Dhaka with effect from June 27. The four-day-a-week operation on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, is in line with the airline’s Think India, Think Jet Airways policy. This new service will complement the existing daily operations between the two cities, providing guests more flight choices between Bangladesh and India. Jet Airways 9W 280 will depart from Delhi at 1035 hrs (LT) and arrive into Dhaka at 13:45 hrs. On its return leg, Jet Airways 9W 279 will depart from Dhaka at 15:15 hrs (LT) and reach Delhi at 1725 hrs (LT). Gaurang Shetty, Whole-time Director, Jet Airways, said, “There was a need and potential to develop the operations between the capitals of India and Bangladesh. The new service presents an opportunity for businesses and leisure travellers to explore the potential of our neighbouring country. Guests from Dhaka can benefit from the connectivity options provided by Jet Airways’ extensive network across India and across the world through its hubs in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.” The airline has deployed a state-of-the-art Boeing 737-800 Next Generation (NG) aircraft on this route, offering Premiere and Economy guests the best in-flight product and services.  

GVK Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), the company that administers the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA), achieved yet another milestone by becoming the only airport in the country and second globally, to achieve a three-year extension of ACI’s Airport Carbon Accreditation (ACA) ‘Level 3+ Neutrality’ certification. This certification is conferred by the Airports Council International (ACI), the global authority of International Airports. ACA ‘Level 3+ Neutrality’ accreditation is the highest level of environmental achievement available to airports for their contribution in offsetting carbon emissions. This certification assumes greater importance given that CSI Airport, Mumbai has the credit of being the busiest airport with a single runway with more than 48.5 million passengers having travelled to and from Mumbai. The accreditation will be valid till May 2021 and is the outcome of continuous efforts for environmental protection, energy management and reduction of carbon emissions in airport operations. Three year renewal of ACA Level 3+ requires an airport to fulfill stringent requirement of achieving reduction (verified by third party) in GHG emissions of one of its Scope 3 activity, in addition to the reduction of Scope 1 & Scope 2 emissions.  

Sanjay Kumar, Chief Commercial Officer, IndiGo, has resigned from the airline, with effect from July 15, 2018, to pursue other career interests. William Boulter, currently Chief Strategy Officer, will be taking over as Chief Commercial Officer. Rahul Bhatia, Interim CEO, IndiGo, said, “I would like to thank Sanjay for all he has done for the company in making IndiGo the airline it is. We are successful at what we do and Sanjay’s contribution has been very significant in getting us to the level we are today. I am grateful for all his hard work since he joined in January 2007 and wish him all the best in his future endeavours.” Kumar said, “The last 12 years at IndiGo has been the most satisfying and rewarding experience of my career. I am extremely proud to have been a part of commercial success of the airline. I would like to thank the founders and all colleagues for their support during this time.”  

Marking a milestone of being the first airline to launch Lucknow-Goa and Lucknow-Pune sectors to its network, IndiGo has announced the introduction of its maiden flights effective July 2018. IndiGo will operate a daily non-stop flight between Lucknow-Goa-Lucknow and Lucknow-Pune-Lucknow respectively. Continuing the low-cost carrier’s expansion in the domestic skies, IndiGo’s average daily departures will now be 25 flights out of Lucknow to 13 destinations. The introduction of these flights will further strengthen the airline’s operations, and will provide enhanced connectivity between Lucknow and other key cities with all-inclusive fares starting from Rs 3999. Sanjay Kumar, Chief Commercial Officer, IndiGo said, “We are pleased to announce the launch of these two sectors from Lucknow, which will further provide more flexibility of choice to our customers. We are providing affordable fares on these new routes for 6E travellers. It is our constant endeavour to provide the best travel experience to our customers, as IndiGo continues to offer them on-time, courteous and hassle-free service and an affordable flying experience always.”

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has revealed its initiatives and achievements in the last four years at a press conference, where Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Civil Aviation, said that the aviation sector in India has reached new heights in the last four years. “In the last four years, we have thoroughly transformed the aviation sector and India has emerged as the third largest domestic aviation market. The connectivity has improved and flying has become affordable for every Indian. This started with the launch of Nationla Civil Aviation Policy in 2016, followed by the highly successful UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) scheme, under which air services have started at 30 additional airports. The airlines in the country have ordered 900 new aircraft under different categories. We are working to increase our system capacity threefold in the next 10-15 years through the NABH (Next Generation Airports for Bharat) Nirman capacity expansion programme. Apart from that we will release new Cargo Policy in the near future along with working on the Make-in-India and Drone Task Forces. We hope to take this sector to new heights.” Also present at the conference were Jayant Sinha, Minister of State, Civil Aviation; RN Choubey, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, along with senior officials from Airport Authority of India (AAI); DGCA, Air India and Pawan Hans.

Three weeks after not being able to attract any bids for the debt-ridden Air India, The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) is set to review its plans to divest the national carrier. Speaking at a press conference to announce the initiatives and achievements of the Ministry in the last four years, Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister of Civil Aviation, said, “The government’s plans to change the decision of disinvestment of Air India stands as it is. However, since no bids came till May 31, which was the last date for expression of interest: we will review the conditions of disinvestment. We have a committee headed by Arun Jaitley, Minister of Finance, to review the plans for Air India and regular meetings are being held to come to a decision on that.”  

IndiGo has recorded the highest on-time performance of 80.9 per cent in May 2018, according to a report by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). On-time performance of the scheduled domestic carriers has been computed for four metros including Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai by the regulator. Sanjay Kumar, Chief Commercial Officer, IndiGo said, “On-time performance is core to our business and is one of the three values that IndiGo stands for. We are indeed happy to record 80.9 per cent OTP for 6E flights operating out of country’s busiest airports including Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai. We thank our over 48.53 lakh passengers who flew with IndiGo in May 2018.  IndiGo will continue to provide an on-time, courteous and hassle free service, and affordable fares to our customers, as always.” IndiGo was also ranked as 4th most punctual airline globally in the mega airline category by OAG, air travel Intelligence Company. In its annual review – Punctuality League 2018, OAG included on-time performance for the world’s Top 20 busiest domestic and international routes. IndiGo was ranked 4th amongst Top 20 mega airlines and 9th amongst Top 20 Low-cost carriers (LCCs) by OTP.

Vistara has received its 21st aircraft, an Airbus A320neo powered by CFM engines and the airline is also eligible to start international operations now. The new aircraft will be deployed to further strengthen the airline’s domestic network. Leslie Thng, CEO, Vistara, said, “There’s great excitement amongst all of us at Vistara, as we prepare ourselves for taking the next leap in our journey to fly international. The arrival of our 21st aircraft makes this phase even more special. It enables us to strengthen our network further, which gives us the opportunity to offer more choices in terms of frequencies to our ever-growing base of loyal customers.” Vistara’s A320neo aircraft comes in its unique cabin configuration of 158 seats (8 Business Class, 24 Premium Economy and 126 Economy Class) as well as other industry-first features, for which the airline calls it #NotJustAnotherNeo. Vistara has consistently raised the bar in the Indian aviation industry and has flown over 9 million customers, and today serves 22 destinations with over 800 flights a week.

Air Odisha has started its services to Chhattisgarh from Andhra Pradesh, as it launched a flight to Jagdalpur from Visakhapatnam through Raipur. The services launched under the Udan regional connectivity scheme were inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi through video conferencing. “We are happy to announce the launch of our new routes in Chhattisgarh connecting with Andhra Pradesh. The UDAN scheme is an excellent scheme initiated under the flagship of our Honourable Prime Minister, Narendra Modi which would aid to the growth of the economy where a common man can also now travel more affordable and convenient way and we are delighted to be a part of this historic moment of nation’s aviation sector,”Shaishav Shah, Managing Director of Air Odisha’s & Executive Director of GSEC said. “In terms of outright benefits to the passengers and travellers, Raipur -Jagdalpur (288 km by road) travel time of 15 hours by train and 6 -7 hours by road shrinks to a mere 40 minutes that to at a cost of Rs 1,670,” the Air Odiaha said in a release. UDAN is to let the common citizens of the country fly by making the air travel affordable and widespread and Air Odisha is able to materialise this goal. With every passing month Air Odisha is adding more regions to its radar for better connectivity in the towns.  In this context commencement of regional connectivity scheme in towns like Jagdalpur, Raipur, Vizag continue to demonstrate Air Odisha’s growth.