Category Archives: Aviation

Bhutan Airlines will start flying to Bodh Gaya next month, catering to the Buddhist pilgrimage market. Effective 4 December 2016, the airline will fly from Bangkok and Paro to the UNESCO-listed heritage site in India’s Bihar state, which is said to be where the Lord Buddha gained enlightenment. Flights will operate twice a week (every Wednesday and Sunday) on a seasonal basis, ending on February 26, 2017. A 122-seat Airbus A319 aircraft will be deployed on the route.

SpiceJet will commence its daily direct flight on the Hyderabad–Jabalpur route from December 23, 2016. Hyderabad is the third metro after Delhi and Mumbai that SpiceJet will be serving a daily direct flight connecting Jabalpur. The fares for the Hyderabad-Jabalpur route will start from Rs 3,613 whereas for Jabalpur – Hyderabad route it will start from Rs 3073. Bookings for the routes are currently open.

Passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-Oct, 2016, were 813.70 lakhs as against 660.60 lakhs during the corresponding period of 2015, thereby registering a growth of 23.18 per cent, according to a DGCA report. SpiceJet recorded the highest PLF of 91.9 per cent amongst all other domestic airlines. The passenger load factor (PLF) in October this year almost remained constant compared to previous month primarily due to the end of tourist season, while the overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for the month of Oct 2016 has been 0.72 per cent. In terms of On Time Performance (OTP), SpiceJet again came out a winner with an average OTP of 86.1 per cent, as against Vistara (83.6 per cent) and IndiGo (81.2 per cent).

Come March 2017, Brussels Airlines will come on board with Lufthansa Group Airlines. Lufthansa Group Airlines represents Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian in India. Wolfgang Will, Director South Asia, Lufthansa Group Airlines, said, “Lufthansa Group Airlines will also now represent Brussels Airlines in India from March 2017 onwards and has also announced five flights from Mumbai to Brussels from the same month.” Will also added that they have received a robust load factor from India which is over 85 per cent.

Oman Air, the national carrier of the Sultanate of Oman, is celebrating the country’s 46th National Day with the inauguration of its Kochi office at a new location. The new office is located in MG Road, which is the most coveted location in the city. It was the first international carrier to operate from the Kochi International Airport. The office inauguration was marked by the ribbon cutting ceremony by Kochi Mayor Soumini Jain, in the esteemed presence of Ihab Sorial, Senior Vice President – International Sales, Sunil VA, Regional Vice President – Indian Subcontinent, Bhanu Kaila, Country Manager – India, Jayakrishna Bhaskaran – District Sales Manager, Kochi and Vijay Bhatia, President, Bird Group of Companies. In 2001, Oman Air started its operations in Kochi with 3 flights in a week which was later increased to 5 flights a week. In 2005, Oman Air announced daily operations from Kochi to Muscat. To meet the ever increasing travel needs of our customers, Oman Air now operates twice daily from Kochi since December 2015.

IndiGo Airlines will now have its fares and ancillaries on Travelport’s travel commerce platform in India. The announcement was made in September, and now the content is live on Travelport. The launch saw in attendance Aditya Ghosh, President & Whole Time Director, IndiGo,  and Gordon Wilson, President & CEO, Travelport. The partnership will see IndiGo leverage Travelport’s leading merchandising capabilities to bring IndiGo’s brand proposition to life for travellers in India, and will be rolled out to agents globally in a phased approach.

In view of the demonetisation drive by the government, and the resulting cash crunch in the country, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has decided to extend the suspension of collection of parking charges at all airports till midnight of 28 November, 2016. The parking charges were earlier waived off till November 24. The extension has been done in order to facilitate the smooth movement of passengers.

Singapore Airlines (SIA) and the Lufthansa Group are further expanding their partnership agreement to provide customers enhanced connections and new codeshare destinations. The expanded codeshare ties will provide SIA customers access to over 20 new routes on Lufthansa- and SWISS-operated flights, to and from points in Europe via the transfer hubs of Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich. In turn, Lufthansa and SWISS customers will be able to access new points via SIA-operated flights between Singapore and destinations such as Canberra, Dusseldorf and Wellington. SIA’s regional subsidiary, SilkAir, will also progressively introduce new codeshare flights with the Lufthansa Group. The expanded codeshare operations are the result of a joint venture agreement signed between the two airline groups in November 2015, which aims to deepen co-operation in key markets in Europe, Southeast Asia and Southwest Pacific. The new codeshare flights will be progressively made available for booking through SIA’s various booking channels.

Heading into 2017, Changi Airport will be offering more flight options for travel to India. A total of 13 weekly services will be introduced between now and the end of the year, representing an addition of nearly 2,300 weekly one-way seats to India. From 20 November, Air India Express will launch 4x weekly services to Kolkata. It will also step up its Chennai services, newly-launched in October, from 5x weekly to daily services.  Meanwhile, Jet Airways will be launching a new daily Singapore-Bangalore service from 14 December; this follows after the airline boosted capacity by switching to a wide body aircraft for their daily Singapore-Mumbai flights earlier this year. Since the beginning of this year, Changi has welcomed two new city links to India – Amritsar and Jaipur – both operated by Scoot, which is a new entrant into the India market. With new routes, increased frequency of services and upgauging of various aircraft this year, seat capacity on India routes has also seen a year-on-year increase of 20.3 per cent. Today, India is Changi Airport’s seventh largest country market, accounting for 6.1% of the airport’s total passenger traffic.  For the first ten months of this year, passenger traffic to and from the India market rose 5% year-on-year to reach 2.94 million movements.  For the month of October, India had the strongest year-on-year growth (+12.4%) among Changi’s top ten country markets. In 2015, Changi Airport saw a record 3.43 million passengers travelling between Singapore and India. Today, Changi is connected to 15 cities in India, with flights operated by nine airlines. Singapore is a popular transfer hub for travellers between India and Australia, and between India and Indonesia. With strong …

On 19 December 2016, the Lufthansa Group will receive its first A350-900, which is the most modern long haul aircraft worldwide and will be based at Lufthansa’s Munich Hub. The first regular commercial flight will be from Munich to Delhi on February 10, 2017. “We are looking forward to welcoming our first A350-900 shortly before Christmas. And already in February, our passengers will be able to enjoy a higher level of comfort on their flights to Delhi as we have now made further improvements to key components of the A350-900’s cabin interior. This includes a newly designed self-service area in Business Class, new seats with ergonomically designed cushions in Economy Class, larger screens in all classes and improved broadband internet services,” says Thomas Winkelmann, CEO of the Munich Hub. Once Lufthansa has taken ownership of the aircraft on December 19, the A350-900 will be transferred to Munich during the week leading up to Christmas. Lufthansa Technik in Munich will then install the cabin interior including the new Premium Economy Class as well as other features so that the new flagship aircraft will be ready to be presented to the public at the beginning of February. From February 2017 onwards, Lufthansa will station the first ten Airbus A350-900 aircraft in Munich. The first flight destinations are Delhi and Boston. The aircraft will have space for 293 passengers – 48 in Business Class, 21 in Premium Economy and 224 in the regular Economy Class section. The A350-900 is the most modern and environmentally friendly long haul aircraft worldwide and uses 25 percent less kerosene and produces 25 percent fewer emissions. The A350-900’s noise “footprint” is up to 50 percent lower than that …