Category Archives: Aviation

Travel agencies, corporate customers and travel technology providers in India can now find out about the airline group’s various direct sales interfaces on a new website. www.lhgroupairlines.com/ndc was set up as part of the NDC Partner Programme. This programme now bundles offers, exclusive content and solutions of the NDC API connection of Lufthansa Group Airlines on a single platform. The website is freely available on the internet and provides information on services that are beneficial for sales partners and customers, the so-called NDC Smart Offer, as well as technological and strategic cooperation options. The programme also offers user support for connected sales partners and training programmes. Travel agencies interested in the free web-based NDC solution SPRK can now register on the website and gain access to the booking and service platform. The registration is possible by filling in a form available on the new website. “We want to provide our local distribution partners with the best possible solutions. The newly launched NDC Partner Program and its website is an important tool. A steadily increasing number of travel agencies are already using and benefiting from NDC Smart Offer,” says Wolfgang Will, Senior Director Sales – South Asia, Lufthansa Group. “At the same time, we extend our NDC Smart Offer to Indian customers. Partners using one of the NDC solutions will benefit from an additional price advantage of Rs 1.500 to our destinations in Europe.”

Airbus has appointed Anand E Stanley, a veteran leader in the global aerospace and defence industry, to succeed Pierre de Bausset as President and Managing Director of Airbus India. Stanley and Bausset will work through a transition before the new appointment takes effect on October 1, 2018. Stanley brings a wealth of international experience in Sales, P&L management, M&A, Aftermarket and Manufacturing. His knowledge of the Indian market will deepen Airbus’ commitment to the local aerospace and defence industries, and will drive its indigenisation to boost India’s economic growth. He will pursue the consolidation of Airbus businesses in India with a view to further reinforcing the position of the group for long-term success and growth in India. “Anand will successfully leverage the large fleet of our products flying in India, our support and services capability, the quality of our engineering team and the deep links that have been forged with local aerospace and defense industrial partners,” said Patrick de Castelbajac, Executive Vice President – Strategy & International, Airbus. A polyglot who has lived and worked in eight countries, Stanley served as Global Executive Vice President – Strategy, The Linde Group prior to joining Airbus. He started his aerospace career at Pratt & Whitney before holding multiple leadership roles within UTC and Lockheed Martin.      

In a crucial update, Air China has announced that it will discontinue IATA commission on SOTO (sold outside ticketed outside) tickets effective September 1, 2018. According to a statement released by the airline, any ticket issue with wrong commission would attract Agency Debit Memo (ADM). Earlier, Jet Airways and Oman Air have also have withdrawn IATA commission for agents.

Due to heavy rains in Kerala, operations to and from Cochin airport have been suspended from August 15-18, 2018 on account of water rising in the operational area. However, Trivandrum and Calicut airports are available for scheduled operations. For international operations, both immigration and customs facilities are available 24*7 at these airports. Trivandrum airport can also accommodate wide-body aircraft. In view of the above and to cater for the stranded passengers, scheduled domestic airlines have been advised to reschedule their flights to/from Cochin to Trivandrum and Calicut airports till such time the situation at Cochin airport returns to normal. All scheduled domestic airlines have been advised to ensure that airfares for flights to/from   Trivandrum   and   Calicut  airports  in   Kerala are kept at optimal level proportionate to sector distance so that travelling public is not inconvenienced.

TruJet is now connecting 14 major destinations in South India including Cuddapah, Nanded, Bellary, Mysore and Salem in the Regional Connectivity Scheme. The airline has been further awarded with 20 new routes in the western and eastern states, and will connect Kandla, Porbandar, Keshod, Jaisalmer, Jalgaon & Nasik from Ahmedabad & Burnpur, Cooch Behar, Tezu and Rupsi from Guwahati. This ushers the commencement of the second phase of TruJet‘s “Sky for ALL” effort where Trujet connects Bharat with India and promotes the unserved/underserved cities to the metropolitans. TruJet has been the first airline to complete all the route connectivity in the first bid of UDAN and Ministry of Civil Aviation has issued a citation for TruJet for being the first airline to commence flight operation in all the RCS routes awarded in UDAN.  

Commercial operations are all set to start from Kannur International Airport in Kerala from October 1, 2018. This was recently announced at a joint press conference by Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister, Civil Aviation, along with KJ Alphons, Minister of State (I/C), Tourism; Jayant Sinha, Minister of State, Civil Aviation; as well as RN Choubey, Secretary, Civil Aviation. The officials shared that all the pending licences would be cleared before September 1 and the final aerodrome licence would also be given by that date. The airport will play a major role under the UDAN scheme of the government. Also, three domestic carriers will be operating international flights from this airport. Jet Airways will be flying to Abu Dhabi; Go Air would ply to Dammam and IndiGo will be flying to Doha from Kannur airport.

In 2017, Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport handled 63.5 million passengers and made it to the list of the top 20 busiest airports of the world. As per the Airports Council International (ACI), which has come out with these rankings, the IGI Airport is now one of the fastest growing airports in the world. According to ACI, “Delhi, the country’s busiest airport for passenger traffic, grew by 14.1 per cent year-over-year at 63.45 million, pushing it up from 22nd to the 16th busiest airport in the world.”

Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister of Civil Aviation, alongside KJ Alphons, Minister of State (I/C),  Tourism and Jayant Sinha, Minister of State, Civil Aviation, has announced that operations of wide-bodied aircraft will be restarting from Calicut Airport in Kerala. Accordingly, DGCA has accepted the safety assessment and advised AAI for commencing operations of A330 and B-777 aircraft of Saudi Arabian Airlines with strict compliance with the mitigation measures to ensure safety operations. In future, any other airline may also start operations at the airport. With this move, a long standing demand of the people in Kerala as well as of the airline has been met. The minister also announced that in future, Calicut Airport could be used as an embarkation point for Haj operations too.

Air India and Ethiopian Airlines, both members of Star Alliance and with an extensive network in their home countries, have agreed to strengthen their cooperation by expanding the current free-sale codeshare agreement, thereby allowing Air India to access Ethiopian Airlines’ network in Africa and Ethiopian Airlines to access Air India’s network in Australia and Hong Kong, in addition to the Indian domestic points. Tadesse Tilahun, Regional Director for Indian subcontinent, Ethiopian Airlines, commented, “The expanded codeshare cooperation between Ethiopian Airlines and Air India gives seamless connection to our esteemed customers. He added, on top of the seamless connection, passengers will get more benefits such as accruing their miles as both airlines belong to the largest airlines alliance – Star Alliance.” “Air India’s esteemed passengers now have access to multiple destinations in the African countries served by Ethiopian Airlines through this expanded cooperation with our long standing partner airline, Ethiopian Airlines, viz through Addis Ababa to Accra, Seychelles, Mombasa, Gaborone, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Kilimanzaro and Zanzibar vv sectors besides the existing access through Addis Ababa to Nairobi, Dar-Es-Salaam, Harare, Entebbe and Kigali vv sectors. Likewise, Ethiopian Airlines customers will be able to access a number of points on Air India network through Delhi to Hong Kong, Melbourne and Sydney vv sectors besides the existing access through Mumbai and Delhi to Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Goa, Jaipur vv sectors”, said Seema Srivastava, Executive Director – Strategy and Planning, Air India.  

Jet Airways has introduced new flights effective August 1, 2018 on the Indore-Chandigarh, Indore-Hyderabad and Bengaluru-Guwahati routes, thus connecting guests from emerging cities to metropolises. Jet Airways flight 9W 955 will depart from Indore at 12:45 hrs, arriving into Chandigarh at 14:45 hrs. On its return journey, flight 9W 958 will depart from Chandigarh at 15:15 hrs. and land at Indore at 17:15 hrs. The flight will then depart for Hyderabad at 18:00 hrs, arriving at its destination at 19:25 hrs. This flight will be operated by Jet Airways on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Jet Airways is set to offer enhanced connectivity to the Northeast from Bengaluru with daily direct services to Guwahati. Guests arriving at Guwahati can avail of excellent connectivity to beyond points to include Aizwal, Bagdogra, Jorhat, Imphal and Silchar. Jet Airways’ guests from Hyderabad will be able to connect to Chandigarh via Indore. Marnix Fruitema, Executive VP – Commercial, Jet Airways said, “With the aviation industry witnessing growth in travel from emerging to metro cities in India, we have introduced several direct flights between new city pairs. Providing enhanced connectivity will enable more flyers to travel for both business and leisure across our network, and at the same time, experience Jet Airways’ famed service excellence.”