Category Archives: Aviation

Travelport has launched the Travelport COVID-19 Smartpoint Plugin. The plugin provides travel agencies with the latest information on government restrictions, lockdowns and safety measures across the globe all within the agent workflow. It is available free-of-charge to all Travelport customers globally, using Travelport Smartpoint 8.2 or above, and can be downloaded directly from Travelport Marketplace. The new tool provides detailed information on a range of topics, including: lockdown rules, entry requirements and quarantine measures for travelers. Country-level information can be displayed at the click of a button, allowing agents to advise their customers easily and instantly. Kyle Moore, Global Head of Customer Strategy and Marketing, Travelport, said, “The travel ecosystem today is probably the most complex it has ever been, with government, airline, and hotel policies in every country constantly-changing. We’re making sure our agent partners no longer need to constantly leave their workflow to search for accurate and up-to-date information— greatly improving their efficiency in servicing their traveller customers.” Sandeep Dwivedi, Chief Operating Officer at InterGlobe Technology Quotient, said: With the looming uncertainty across the globe, having a substantial amount of certainty through readily accessible up-to-date information including on government and airline policies shall unequivocally prove beneficial for our network of agents and serve as a ready aid for gaining momentum in operations and transactions. This free built-in plugin in the GDS is a welcome move from Travelport, one that will result in both informed traveller and travel enabler.” The information in the Travelport COVID-19 Smartpoint Plugin is provided by global travel safety intelligence provider, Safeture, and is updated daily. “Our collaboration with Travelport will provide millions of travellers with the information they need to make informed decisions. With …

International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that airlines in the Asia-Pacific region will be the hardest hit by the COVID-19 crisis, with losses expected to be $29 billion for 2020. This is more than a third of the $84.3 billion industry losses globally.

India is still top of the mind in all the top searched markets in South Asia from all the source markets, namely UK, USA, Germany, UAE and Australia, revealed Olivier Ponti, VP Insights, ForwardKeys. “In fact, India is usually in the top two of the destinations for these markets. We can see a lot of VFR travel going on from these destinations to India,” he revealed at the PATA India Chapter’s webinar titled ‘Tourism the economic PowerHouse in an evolving landscape’.

According to the latest CAPA Insider edition for South Asia, as of the start of 2020, India’s largest airline, IndiGo was the 10th largest in the world by weekly seat capacity. The four largest carriers were all based in the US. It was the only Indian airline to be listed in the top 10 list.

Starting August, Alitalia will increase the number of flights, and will operate a total of over 1,600 flights per week, 24% more than in July and more than double compared to those operated in June. Alitalia aircraft will fly on 75 routes (24 more than July) and 52 airports (16 more than in the previous month), of which 20 in Italy and 32 abroad. Seats offered in August will return to exceed one million per month, with a growth by 29% compared to July. Despite the significant growth of operations compared to the previous two months, Alitalia will increase its activity in August at around 45% of what was planned before the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Alitalia flight schedule will see in August, on the long-haul sector, the beginning of the Rome-Tokyo Haneda route (from 17 August), the resume of the Milan Malpensa-New York service (from 15 August) and the increase of flights between Rome and New York. On the medium-haul international network, Alitalia will increase the number of destinations served in Spain, France and North Africa and will resume services to and from the Middle East, as well as increasing the number of flights to airports already served abroad; in addition, the Airline will launch many seasonal services to the Balearic Islands and to the Greek Islands (both from Rome and Milan). For the domestic sector, Alitalia will increase air services between Northern and Southern Italy. Furthermore, beginning on 24 July Alitalia will resume operations to and from Milan Linate airport where the Airline will operate, in a first stage, only the PSO routes to and from Sardinia. Starting from 1 August, the Airline will operate to …

In view of the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak, the domestic airlines are operating at a lower capacity – total 21,696 departures in June 2020, as against 86,456 departures in June 2019, resulting in a 74.9% YoY reduction in capacity deployment, reveals ICRA. For June 2020, the domestic passenger traffic was 19.5 lakh, as against 119.9 lakh in June 2019, a YoY de-growth of 83.7%. For May 2020 (25th to 31st), the domestic passenger traffic was 2.6 lakh, as against 115.6 lakh in May 2019, resulting in a YoY de-growth of 97.7%.

International Air Transport Association (IATA) has released a letter to national associations that states that agencies will receive only 8% of the total refunds from Jet Airways. The letter states, “Unfortunately, the balance of the Security Deposit held by IATA (after settling 100% of all refunds up to the date of suspension) was not sufficient to cover all the remaining refunds that have been approved by Jet Airways in the post-suspension refund process. Therefore, IATA will have to pro-rate the total refund against the net remaining balance withheld, which means that your agency will receive approximately 8% of the total refunds approved by the airline.” This will be automatically included in their billing. Refunds that have been rejected by the airline will not be processed.

Sanjay Kumar, Chief Strategy & Revenue Officer, IndiGo, has said that all the states shall offer similar rules and regulations for travellers coming in or going out to improve demand. Speaking at the PHD Chamber of Commerce & Industry webinar, he said, “The level of confidence is coming back to the public with increased operations. We are seeing slower growth because of the inconsistency of the state governments at various levels, including different rules and regulations in different markets, which is keeping customers away. If all state governments offer similar rules and regulations for travellers coming in or going out, I think we will see an improved situation going forward. It will take another 2-3 weeks before we start to see all the state governments getting aligned to a common working protocol, which will push the demand.”

As per an ICRA study, though restricted recommencement of domestic air traffic has begun, this will in no case help the industry to recover lost ground in FY2021. Overall, FY2021 is expected to witness 41-46% de-growth in domestic passenger traffic. However, H2 FY2021 will witness some recovery.

Ajay Singh, Chairman & Managing Director, Spicejet, has said that we need to use this opportunity to try and collect the imbalances in the industry like the structural problems, get aviation turbine fuel under GST and make this crisis into an opportunity. He was speaking at a webinar organised by PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Singh also lauded the government on resumption of flight operations and putting in place a contactless digital experience for travellers. He shared that there is a need to build confidence among the masses which can be done with the dissemination of information.