Category Archives: Aviation

GoAir has started to commercially operate night flights to Port Blair Veer Savarkar International Airport. Its maiden commercial charter flight G8 1291 took off from Bengaluru at 23:15 hrs on January 20, and landed at Port Blair airport at 01:50 hrs. As a part of its charter operations, GoAir will operate three night flights in this sector in January, five night flights in February and six night flights in March. All flights will arrive at Port Blair from Bengaluru at 1.50 am and depart for Bengaluru from Port Blair VSI Airport at 2.20 am. Effective March 27, 2016 and as per its new summer schedule, GoAir will also start operating its first ever daily direct flights to Port Blair from Bengaluru.

From April 25-June 15, Tigerair will increase flight frequency on its Hyderabad-Singapore and Tiruchirappalli-Singapore route by adding one seasonal route each, taking the total count to seven and 14 weekly flights. The increase of the frequency on these routes is due to the overwhelming response from these markets during peak season, said Teh Yik Chuan, Director – Sales and Marketing, Tigerair. To ensure an overall memorable experience, Tigerair has partnered with Singapore Tourism Board to encourage travellers from India to witness the thrilling sights and sounds of Singapore. The budget carrier has also announced an all-inclusive return fare to Singapore for passengers travelling from Hyderabad during Mar 9-Apr 16. The special fare can be availed by booking tickets from Jan 20-31.

Starting March this year, Kuwait Airways will add two more flights on the Kuwait-Ahmedabad and Kuwait-Bengaluru routes making it five flights each. The airline recently increased its frequency to twice double daily from Kuwait to Cochin and added three flights to Ahmedabad and Bengaluru each. Philip Saunders, Chief Commercial Officer, Kuwait Airways, said, “We are seeing a change in the load factors from India. We are excited about our new schedules with new destinations like Ahmedabad and Bengaluru while consolidating our operations in other places by introducing double-daily flights to Cochin that we did in December 2015. The second reason why things will continue to improve for us is the growth of Indian market and also because our strategy is focusing on depth rather than breadth. We want to introduce more frequencies as we can and get more relevant to Indians living in Kuwait. A third reason is that we are recruiting the right people to engage with the travel agents to find new ways to co-operate with them.” The airline still offers IATA commission of three per cent in India apart from some incentive it offers to the travel agents.

Owing to high security alert in the run up to Republic Day celebrations, IndiGo has extended its normal closure of check-in time of 45 minutes to 60 minutes to minimise flight delays and congestion in the security hold area. The airline has asked its passengers to arrive 15 minutes prior against the original check-in time i.e. 45 minutes effective January 19 to January 31.

SpiceJet has announced the launch of two new flights to Jaipur and Hyderabad. With the introduction of these two new flights, SpiceJet now connects 10 Indian cities with Dubai every day. The airline is offering an introductory one way offer of Dh359 (all-inclusive) between Dubai and Jaipur. The Dubai-Hyderabad fares are available at Dh397 (all-inclusive) on a first-come-first-served basis. The flights will commence on February 16, 2016, for which bookings are now open. “With the launch of our Jaipur-Dubai sector, SpiceJet will become the first private airline to operate a direct flight on this route. SpiceJet will also be the only airline to fly five times per week on this route. The Hyderabad-Dubai flights are so timed as to allow business travellers to India’s IT hub make the most of every working day,” said Shilpa Bhatia, Senior VP Commercial, SpiceJet. The airline will deploy its Boeing 737-800 aircraft on these routes.

RwandAir, the national carrier for Rwanda, will start direct flights from Rwanda into Mumbai effective September 2016. Clarence Fernandes, India representative, Rwanda Development Board, which also promotes tourism, reveales, “RwandAir will be coming in with four weekly flights from Mumbai to Dar-e-salaam and Dar-e-salaam to Kigali on A-330 with first, business and economy class. They will initially come in with 244 seats and as the demand increases the airline will scale up to 274 seats. This will be the shortest route, connecting Mumbai and Kigali. Dar-e-Salaam has a large Indian population so it was most practical to do a stop-over here.”

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is offering an aerial view of Mumbai for 20 minutes at a cost of Rs 2,995 per person. IRCTC has tied up with private chopper company, Aman Aviation, which will use the US-made Robinson R-44 helicopter carrying three passengers at a time. To book a helicopter ride, passengers can log on to www.irctctourism.com. In the initial phase, the rides will be operated to facilitate an aerial view of the suburbs of east and south Mumbai. Helicopter rides for south Mumbai will likely be undertaken on Mondays and Thursdays whereas joy rides for east Mumbai will be available on any given day except Wednesday. Booking will be closed four days prior to departure of the flight. Thirty seats will be available every day.

SpiceJet achieved the highest passenger load factor (PLF) of 92.1 per cent followed by IndiGo at 88.5 per cent and Air Costa at 87.1 per cent for the month of December 2015, according to data provided by Ministry of Civil Aviation. The domestic airlines carried 20.34 per cent more passengers during December. The number of passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-Dec 2015 were 810.91 lakhs as against 673.83 lakhs during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering the growth of 20.34 per cent. The On-Time Performance (OTP) of scheduled domestic airlines, computed for four metro airports viz. Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai showed Vistara topping the chart with 90.6 per cent followed by GoAir at 79.3 per cent (excluding Hyderabad) and Jet Airways at 78.5 per cent.

AirAsia has amended its pricing for bag fees, increasing the cost for purchasing checked baggage after a flight booking has been made. The new fee structure takes effect on January 28 and applies to all routes except those originating from Indonesia. At any time after a booking has been confirmed, customers will have to pay more for checked baggage, such as through the Manage My Booking page, the airline said. AirAsia said this is still a cheaper option than checking in bags at the last minute prior to departure. For example, a 20kg of checked baggage for a one-way flight from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore would cost RM45 at the time of the flight booking. If this is done later through Manage My Booking, customers would pay RM52 or a whopping RM355 on the day at the check-in counter. The new fee schedule has been uploaded to the AirAsia website. “You will still enjoy more savings as compared to purchasing last minute at the airport counter,” the airline said in a release.

JetPrivilege, the loyalty and rewards management programme and frequent flyer programme of Jet Airways, has entered into a reciprocal frequent flyer partnership with of Bangkok Airways’ loyalty scheme, FlyerBonus. JetPrivilege members can now earn and redeem JPMiles when travelling across the Bangkok Airways network including popular destinations like Samui, Krabi, Phuket and Luang Prabang via Bangkok. Similarly, members of Bangkok Airways’ FlyerBonus programme can also earn and redeem their miles across Jet Airways’ extensive network in India and key international destination in North America, Europe, Middle East and SAARC. Jet Airways operates three daily flights to Bangkok from its hubs in India – two from Mumbai and one from Delhi. Gaurang Shetty, Sr. Vice President, Commercial, Jet Airways, said, “This partnership with Bangkok Airways will offer exceptional value to our guests. The new codeshare destinations with Bangkok Airways are an important extension to the Jet Airways international network, enhancing our product offering and providing greater choice and convenience to our guests.” Prote Setsuwan, Vice President – Marketing, Bangkok Airways, said, “We are delighted to partner with JetPrivilege, the frequent flyer programme of Jet Airways. This will bring significant benefits to passengers of both airlines. As Bangkok Airways always continues to offer our FlyerBonus members more value and options, we hope and trust that this partnership will enhance their traveling experience with us.”