Category Archives: Aviation

Air India is going to start bi-weekly direct flights between Bhubaneswar and from January 20, 2020, informed Usha Padhee, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation in a tweet. The flight, AI A321 will operate on Mondays and Thursdays at 8:40 am from Bhubaneswar and from Surat at 8:30 am on Fridays and Sundays. The lowest fare quoted on Air India’s website is Rs 4503. In the return direction, the lowest fare for which tickets are on sale is Rs 4213. The flight was a long-standing demand of leaders of Odisha community in Surat. Notably, the diamond city of Gujarat has Odia population of around 2.5 lakh. In August 2019, Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik had requested Civil Aviation Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri to consider the demand to start a direct flight between both the city. The flight was earlier expected to start from January 1.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) forecast that the global airline industry will produce a net profit of $29.3 billion in 2020, improved over a net profit of $25.9 billion expected in 2019 (revised downward from a $28 billion forecast in June). The net profit margin is forecast at 3.4% (up from 3.1% for 2019). The return on invested capital is forecast to be 6.0% (improved from 5.7% expected in 2019). Overall industry revenues are forecast to reach $872 billion (+4.0% on $838 billion in 2019). Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO, said,  “Slowing economic growth, trade wars, geopolitical tensions and social unrest, plus continuing uncertainty over Brexit all came together to create a tougher than anticipated business environment for airlines. Yet the industry managed to achieve a decade in the black, as restructuring and cost-cutting continued to pay dividends. It appears that 2019 will be the bottom of the current economic cycle and the forecast for 2020 is somewhat brighter. The big question for 2020 is how capacity will develop, particularly when, as expected, the grounded 737 MAX aircraft return to service and delayed deliveries arrive.”

The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for the month of November 2019 has been 1.87%. AirAsia India recorded least number of cancellations and recorded 0.51% cancellations, followed by Vistara at 0.63% and Indigo at 1.07%. SpiceJet stood at 4th place with 1.51% cancellations and Star Air was fifth at 2.08%. GoAir was at 2.10%, while Air India recorded 3.68% cancellations.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is in talks with the Indian civil aviation officials to adopt the worldwide airport slot guidelines which will help new airlines get slots at various airports in India. Once adopted, more international airlines will be able to fly into India, connecting more cities worldwide and it could also help the UDAN scheme. As per the guidelines, new entrants which could either be new airlines or those who have not operated from a particular airport will be allowed three daily return flights. Once these slots are used up, that particular airline will not be allocated new slots but will have to bid for the next phase of expansion. (Source: The Hindu Business Line)

The government has said that it has invested over Rs 300 crore for developing airport infrastructure till November this fiscal. In an official statement, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said that as many as 10 airports commenced operations in 2019, 335 routes have been awarded, covering 33 aerodromes during the year. According to the ministry, approximately 3.4 million passengers flew under the government’s regional connectivity scheme, Udan, till date, with 134 routes commencing operations between January and October. “Rs 304.49 crore has been spent on up-gradation of existing and new airports from April to November this year. “Also, 10 airports became operational till December 7 in 2019, of which four are underserved (Lilabari, Belgaum, Pantnagar and Durgapur) and the remaining ones unserved (Kullu, Kalaburgi, Kannar, Dimapur, Hindon and Pithoragarh),” the release said.

Expanding its network, AirAsia India has launched new flights to Kochi and Ahmedabad from Delhi effective December 20. The inaugural starting fares on these new routes between New Delhi-Kochi and New Delhi- Ahmedabad are priced attractively at Rs 3915 and Rs 2015 respectively. Flight no i5791 from New Delhi departs at 4:55 hours and lands in Kochi at 08:00 hours while flight i5792 fly back to New Delhi from Kochi at 08:50 hours and reaches the destination at 12:00 hours. Flight i5795 from New Delhi departs at 21:30 hours and reaches Ahmedabad at 23:05 hours. On its way back to New Delhi, flight i5769 departs at 23:35 hours and lands in New Delhi at 01:05 hours.  The low-cost carrier now flies to 21 destinations pan-India with a fleet of 27 A320 aircraft. While launching flights to Kochi and Ahmedabad, the newly appointed Chief Commercial Officer of the airline, Ankur Garg said, “We continue to strengthen our network across India. I am confident that, with the robust expansion plans we have chalked out for 2020-2021, we will be able to offer our services on many more new routes.” AirAsia India flew 7.60 lakh passengers in November with a 5.9 per cent market share.

IndiGo has achieved the feat of having 1500 daily departures across its network of 83 domestic and international destinations. IndiGo expanded its operations to 11 domestic and 8 international new destinations inclusive of multiple exclusive and virgin routes, increasing its portfolio by 22 percent, between January to December 2019. Ronojoy Dutta, CEO, IndiGo said, “We are very pleased to be the first Indian airline to touch 1500 daily departures, with one flight taking off every minute. The simple philosophy of offering low fares and on-time, courteous, hassle-free service has been the foundation of IndiGo’s growth and unparalleled network in India. Flying over 2,50,000 customers every day, we are on a mission to promote trade, tourism and economic growth by increasing mobility and accessibility across the length and breadth of the country”.

Domestic air passenger traffic for November was fastest in 2019, carrying 12.95 million people in November, up 11.2% year-on-year, revealed Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). This was the fastest growth recorded since December last year. This growth can be attributed to SpiceJet, which carried two million passengers in the month, a jump of 43% year-on-year. IndiGo, on the other hand carried six million passengers, up 21%. GoAir’s passenger traffic increased 39.5% to 1.4 million, while that of Air India increased by 10% to 1.5 million. The recent data revealed that passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-Nov 2019 were 1311.54 lakhs as against 1262.83 lakhs during the corresponding period of previous year hereby registering annual growth of 3.86%.

US-based Delta Air Lines will restart its Mumbai-New York JFK non-stop, daily flight service from December 24, 2019. The airline is starting the flight after a decade as it used to fly this route till 2009. Its last flight in India, connecting Mumbai and Amsterdam, was in 2015. The relaunched flight will take off at 12.55 am from Mumbai on December 24, on a renovated Boeing 777-200LR aircraft and will land at New York’s JFK airport, 16 hours later. Jimmy Eichelgruen, Director- Sales for Africa, Middle East and Indian subcontinent, Delta Air Lines was in Mumbai recently to announce this. He said, “Delta’s return to India will ensure that Mumbai is even better connected to the United States. There will be 14 flights per week and the flying time will be 16 hours.” The airline has an existing interline agreement with Air India and has just established an interline agreement with Vistara. “We will first develop and establish out interline agreements with Indian airlines and once they are stabilized, we will explore codeshare,” Eichelgruen adds. Delta earlier had a codeshare agreement with Jet Airways which suspended operations in April 2019.

RwandAir has announced that effective January 1, 2020, the airline will cut down the IATA agent commission to 0% from the current 3%. Announcing a revision in its commission structure, RwandAir revealed that the 3% commission would only be effective till December 31, 2019, and starting 2020, there will be no commission for agents. The airline thanked the trade fraternity for their support.