Category Archives: Aviation

SriLankan Airlines has commenced a code-shared, non-stop service between Toronto and Delhi with Air India, providing seamless connection to Colombo. Flights will operate on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays both to and from Toronto. The Delhi-Toronto flight AI187 will have the UL code UL3640; while the Toronto-Delhi flight AI188 will have the code UL3641. Travellers can now book their entire journey from Sri Lanka to Canada in one go , which they were unable to do earlier. The non-stop flight from Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson International Airport to New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport is supported by rapid connectivity to Colombo with connection times of just 4 hours for Colombo-Delhi-Toronto and 6 hours for Toronto-Delhi-Colombo. SriLankan and Air India currently codeshare on each other’s flights to a large number of destinations in South Asia, the Far East and the Indian Ocean region.

Air India in a recent announcement has said that the airline now allows 10 kg more bag allowance on all its domestic flights where the fliers can save up to Rs 5000. Earlier, 15 kg were allowed on the domestic sector. This has brought huge respite to domestic fliers. In other announcement, Alliance Air has also started Hyderabad-Hubli flights under UDAN.

Hahn Air has signed IATA’s industry-wide 25by2025 campaign. With 39% of its leadership positions occupied by women, the German airline and distribution specialist already surpasses the desired 25% gender ratio of the initiative. Kirsten Rehmann, General Director, Hahn Air 2012, said, “For Hahn Air, gender equality has always been part of our corporate ethos and I am immensely pleased to champion this initiative that recognises the need for a change. I believe that this campaign is a big step in the right direction and will play an important role in driving gender equality forward within the industry. I strongly believe that we need diversity in every sense of the word, and not limited to gender, to create the best work culture and ultimately make the best decisions and achieve the best results.”

Emirates has signed a codeshare and interline agreement with SpiceJet to give travellers to and from India seamless access to a wider and a stronger route network. This is the first-ever codeshare agreement signed by SpiceJet. From early 2020, customers travelling to India can take advantage of many more flight options on routes common to both airlines – Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Cochin and Delhi. Emirates’ customers can conveniently book and connect seamlessly in Dubai on direct services to Amritsar, Calicut, Mangalore, Madurai, Jaipur and Pune – routes served by SpiceJet.  The codeshare agreement means travellers from across the globe can book a single ticket with attractive fares to any of Emirates’ nine points across India and connect onwards to 172 domestic routes that are part of SpiceJet’s network. SpiceJet’s domestic network includes popular destinations like Goa, Dehradun, Dharamshala, Jaisalmer, Jammu, Srinagar, Leh, Guwahati, Pondicherry, Port Blair, Shirdi, Tirupati, Udaipur and Varanasi. In this first phase of interline agreement customers can start booking flights from 25 November, for travel starting 15 December 2019. Adnan Kazim, Emirates’ Chief Commercial Officer said: “Emirates has historically shared a close and collaborative bond with India. In the last decade, we have flown more than 50 million customers on our Indian routes, which we now serve with 170 weekly services from Dubai. Our partnership will help us leverage SpiceJet’s extensive route network, so that our customers who are visiting friends and family can fly closer to their hometowns, while tourists can more easily access many of the incredible sights and sounds India has to offer. This will also have a significant and positive impact on businesses in both countries and globally. We look to strengthening our partnership …

Air India has cut down its cost by Rs 300 crore in last one year by being exclusive on single GDS- Travelport, reveals Meenakshi Malik, Executive Director (Commercial), Air India. Speaking on the feasibility of the move, Malik says, “Exclusivity with one GDS system is absolutely feasible. We have seen a growth of 22 per cent without any problem and we have cut down the cost by around Rs. 300 crores this year. We have projected a saving of Rs. 3200 crores in 5 years. It’s already been one year and we are doing fine.”

Currently, Lufthansa Group has an interline agreement with Vistara, which allows a passenger to check-in his luggage at the first airport itself for the whole journey consisting of flights of both airlines. Asked if Lufthansa is planning to convert its interline agreement with Vistara to a codeshare agreement, a Lufthansa official said, “We are trying to strengthen it. We want to strengthen partnerships with other Indian airlines. So, Vistara is an obvious choice.”

Passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-Oct 2019 were 1182.06 lakhs as against 1146.37 lakhs during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering annual growth of 3.11% and monthly growth of 3.98%, revealed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. The passenger load factor in the month of October trend compared to previous month primarily due to the onset of tourist season.

LATAM Airlines Group and DELTA has recently announced strategic partnership where Delta will make a public offer to acquire 20% of LATAM Group at US$16 per ADR. Delta will buy 14 Airbus A350 aircrafts from the LATAM Group: 4 currently owned by the LATAM Group, and 10 with orders placed by LATAM to be delivered from 2020 on. Delta will secure US$350 million to support the creation of this alliance.

Virgin Atlantic has announced a new second daily service to Delhi Indira Gandhi Airport, commencing on 29 March 2020, offering 108,000 additional seats for summer 2020. The new flights to Delhi will go on sale on Saturday, 23 November. It will depart Heathrow in the morning complementing the airline’s current evening departure and offering more choice to customers travelling for both business and leisure between India and UK’s capital cities. Together with Delta Air Lines, Virgin Atlantic will offer seamless connections between Delhi and New York JFK, Boston, Detroit and Atlanta via Heathrow. The airline will also be re-timing its Mumbai flight to an evening departure from Heathrow, offering a more convenient choice for business customers. With the additional daily flight to Delhi and the newly launched Mumbai service, Virgin Atlantic will offer more choice to India than ever before. Juha Jarvinen, EVP Commercial at Virgin Atlantic, said: “Next year will mark twenty years since Virgin Atlantic started flying to Delhi, and the service continues to grow in popularity for both business and leisure travel. The second daily service from Heathrow is an excellent opportunity to meet customer demand on this route and, coupled with our new service to Mumbai, we’re able to offer even more choice and unrivalled Virgin Atlantic service to customers travelling between the UK and India.’’ The airline has announced some further changes to its flying programme in 2020: For transatlantic customers, the airline will fly its brand new A350 to San Francisco from May 2020, and coupled with a new weekly flight, will boost capacity by 40,000 seats for the summer season.By August, Virgin Atlantic’s A350 aircraft will fly to five destinations across its network. …

Adani Group is set to acquire 13.5 per cent stake in Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) from Bid Services Division (Mauritius) and 10 per cent stake from ACSA Global after the Competition Commission of India (CCI) approve the acquisition of shareholdings. The CCI has also approved an additional acquisition of 3.28% stake in logistics company Delhivery by the SVF Doorbell Cayman Ltd. This will take Adani Group’s share in MIAL to 23.5 per cent.