Category Archives: Aviation

Booking.com has partnered with Air India to offer the airline’s customers access to over 28.9 million accommodation listings, including everything from homes, apartments, villas to world-class hotels and resorts from the Air India website. Stewart Jones, Regional Director – Strategic Partnerships, APAC, Booking.com said, “Air India makes it the perfect partner for us to showcase our global online accommodation offering to their domestic and international customers. As India is poised to become the third largest aviation market by 2020 with its fast-growing outbound travel market, we are happy to combine our strengths with Air India’s to deliver the best travel experience to travellers across the country.” Madhu Mathen, General Manager – Sales and Marketing, Air India said, “Booking.com’s global reach and unique accommodation offerings is a key reason we chose the online accommodation platform as one of our first accommodation partner. As a member of the world’s largest airline alliance – Star Alliance, Air India has passengers that are globe-trotters. Partnering with Booking.com enables us at Air India to provide our customers a broad & unique variety of accommodation options in any city we fly them to.”  

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), at International Aviation Summit held in Delhi, called on the government of India to maximise the potential contribution of aviation to India’s development by addressing infrastructure constraints that limit growth and government policies that impose excessive costs on aviation. Growth forecasts for India indicate a trebling of passenger demand by 2037 when some 500 million people are expected to fly to, from or within India. Already aviation supports 7.5 million Indian jobs and Rs 30 billion of GDP (1.5% of the economy). The Summit, being co-hosted by the Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), Airports Authority India (AAI) and IATA, commemorates the approaching milestone of 50-straight months of double digit domestic growth for Indian aviation. “While it is easy to find Indian passengers who want to fly, it’s very difficult for airlines to make money in this market. India’s social and economic development needs airlines to be able to profitably accommodate growing demand. We must address infrastructure constraints that limit growth and government policies that deviate from global standards and drive up the cost of connectivity,” said Alexandre de Juniac, Director General and CEO, IATA. India’s aviation infrastructure has benefitted from significant upgrades in recent years. “It is clear that India has the capacity to develop effective infrastructure. But the job is not done. Passenger numbers will grow. And infrastructure must not be a bottleneck in fulfilling the needs of travelers and the economy,” said de Juniac who called for work in four priority areas – develop a comprehensive and strategic master plan for India’s airports, remove all obstacles to successfully opening Navi Mumbai as quickly as possible, modernise airport processes using technology in …

GVK Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), the company that administers the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA), has inducted first-of-its-kind Advanced Passenger Evacuation Vehicle for rescuing stranded personnel from inaccessible areas of aircraft. The vehicle covers all types of aircraft currently used in the Aviation industry, including A380 which is the biggest civilian aircraft available now. This highly developed vehicle will be used for rescuing stranded personnel, wherein conventional alighting systems cannot be employed. In the unlikely event of an aircraft veering away from its normal path, this equipment can be rushed to the spot and the attached ladder can be extended up to aircraft door for passengers or crew to be safely evacuated. This ladder can be extended up to a maximum height of 8.3 metres. The escape stairs have high evacuation load capacity of approximately 115 people at one time. This machine is equipped with an engine of 540 HP which will give an acceleration of 0-80 km per hour in less than 40 seconds which is one of the fastest in this category. The vehicle is fitted with high pressure smoke ventilation system which can remove smoke from fuselage/ cockpit and increase chances of surviving. This highly developed machine can also reach off-road surfaces with 6X6 wheel drive system on single wheel configuration

GoAir is all set to commence its international flight operations by offering India’s first-ever direct service to Phuket, Thailand effective October 11, 2018 from Delhi and Mumbai. This will be followed by its second international service connecting Mumbai and Delhi with Male, Maldives effective October 14, 2018. These destinations will also be connected from Bengaluru in the near future. GoAir will continue to operate its A320 aircraft in all operations and on both these international routes. The airline will operate three direct flight services per week between Mumbai – Phuket – Mumbai at a return fare starting from Rs 18,999 (all inclusive); two direct flight services per week between Delhi – Phuket – Delhi at a return fare starting from Rs 18,999 (all inclusive). Similarly the airline will operate three direct flight services per week between Mumbai – Male – Mumbai at a return fare starting from Rs 17,999 (all inclusive); 2 direct flight services per week between Delhi – Male – Delhi at a return fare starting from Rs 18,999 (all inclusive). Commenting on the launch of their international operations, Cornelis Vrieswijk, CEO, GoAir said, “Phuket and Male are key tourist destination and hold a lot of promise. As an LCC, we have always strived to offer the best value for money to our customers and now we extend this proposition to the international traveller as well. The international schedules have been planned to allow quick and convenient connections for customers and is a reflection of our continued journey towards excellence.”    

IndiGo has launched Kuwait and Abu Dhabi as its new destinations, effective October 2018. To provide enhanced connectivity across India, IndiGo has added 24 new flights to its network. IndiGo will become the first domestic airline to introduce services connecting Port Blair with Hyderabad and Vadodara. These flights will commence from September 2018. In addition, 6E will operate its first daily return flight between Surat and Chennai, daily non-stop return service between Delhi and Imphal, direct flights to Vijayawada from Delhi.  The airline will also add two international new routes connecting Doha with Ahmedabad and Trivandrum. These new services will be effective October 2018. William Boulter, Chief Commercial Officer, IndiGo said, “We will operate the first flight between Kuwait and Chennai and Calicut and Abu Dhabi starting October this year. It also gives us immense pleasure to add 24 additional flights to 6E network. IndiGo has completed 12 years of successful operations in the India market as a low cost carrier, and adding new flights to its network will further augment the connectivity that we aspire to provide to our customers.”

In a recent communication to Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), Air India has agreed to TAAI’s request to give travel agents a backend incentive of 3 per cent on international sector and 8 per cent on domestic sector on Electronic Miscellaneous Document (EMD) value exclusive of taxes for issuance of EMD for preferred seat selection. This incentive will be apart from normal commission applicable on sale of Preferred Seat Selection (PSS). The communication states that the backend incentive will be payable on a quarterly basis to BSP India agents on flown revenue basis. This means that other than the normal commission, agents will also be eligible for this incentive.

Kochi airport is set to resume flight operations at 14hrs on August 29, according to a recent update by Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL). In a meeting held at CIAL to review the damage control activities at Kochi airport, most of the stakeholders including airlines and ground handling agencies expressed their concerns over mobilising man power. About 90 per cent of their staffers got affected with the flood and are out of station. Nearby hotels, restaurants and eateries still remain closed. As central Kerala is yet to recover from post-flood trauma, it is a daunting task to arrange local commutation and logis­tics of catering items which will cause a cascading effect on the passengers. In view of these apprehensions, CIAL extended the date of resuming operations.

Jet Airways and Bangkok Airways have announced the expansion of their existing codeshare agreement to provide more choice and convenient travel options. Guests travelling between key destinations across Thailand, Vietnam and India, will benefit from this alignment between the two airlines. Moreover, this expanded partnership will offer guests enhanced connectivity and seamless access when travelling throughout the combined networks of both the airlines. On the occasion of the codeshare expansion, Gaurang Shetty, Wholetime Director, Jet Airways, said, “Jet Airways and Bangkok Airways have been codeshare partners since 2013, and with this enhancement we will for the first time, be able to offer our guests seamlessly connectivity on codeshare flights to seven key touristic favorites across Thailand, as well as growing markets in Vietnam. This codeshare agreement will further lead to a boost in tourism and trade between India and these Asian nations.” Puttipong Prasarttong-Osoth, President, Bangkok Airways said “We are pleased to expand cooperation with Jet Airways to strengthen our respective route networks and offer business and leisure travelers with unprecedented and convenient access to new gateways.”

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.