Category Archives: Aviation

Turkey’s national flag carrier operated an important flight on April 23, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Grand National Assembly, and National Sovereignty and Children’s Day. The TC-JJF registered Boeing 777-300 (ER) type aircraft, which arrived in Ankara in the morning for this special flight, took off from Esenboğa Airport on April 23 at 09:40, local time. Representing the date 23 April 1920, flight TK1920 lasted approximately two hours and followed a route in which the crescent and star symbols in the Turkish flag were drawn. After the flight, which was followed by many through the live air traffic site Flightradar24, a crescent-star route emerged and passed into Turkish aviation history. Captain Öner Samyel and First Officer Murat Gülkanat, who made this flight, made a special announcement in the sky above the Assembly building, which was opened 100 years ago. In the announcement referring to the statement of Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, “Sovereignty unconditionally belongs to the nation,” Turkish Airlines ensured that his legacy lived on in the skies. Turkish Airlines Chairman of the Board and the Executive Committee, M. İlker Aycı said “The inauguration day of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, founded a hundred years ago to represent the will of a nation which went great lengths to ensure its freedom and independence, was gifted to our children by its founder Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as “April 23, National Sovereignty and Children’s Day”, reflecting the confidence in the next generation in the safekeeping of these sacred values. As our country’s national flag carrier, we dedicate today’s exclusive flight to our children, the guardians of our future.”

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) in its latest estimation based on a scenario of severe travel restrictions lasting for three months, with a gradual lifting of restrictions in domestic markets, followed by regional and intercontinental predicted that the Indian aviation sector among the Asia Pacific countries would be the worst hit as close to 29.32 lakh jobs are likely to be at risk in the sector during 2020. The report also said that the revenue of the sector in India may fall by $11,221 million this year compared to 2019. Further, passenger demand is likely to fall by 47 per cent in the country. Conrad Clifford, IATA’s Regional Vice President for Asia-Pacific, said that airlines in the region face a liquidity crisis with a $61 billion cash burn in the second quarter of 2020.

The government has extended the deadline to submit the bid documents for Air India by two months to 30th June looking at the ongoing nationwide lockdown. This is the second time the government extended the deadline to submit bids for Air India. It had earlier extended the deadline to 30 April from 17 March. The government in January invited preliminary bids to divest its entire stake in Air India, and the airline’s subsidiary Air India Express along with its joint venture Air India SATS Airport Services Private Limited. The successful bidder for Air India will be required to absorb ₹23,286.5 crores of debt after the government transfers Rs63,113 crore of debt from Air India and subsidiary Air India Express ahead of the national carrier’s proposed divestment.

Boutique advisory and analytics firm VIDEC has launched a Global Travel Staffing Barometer, an online resource to monitor the impact of COVID-19 coronavirus on the travel, tourism and hospitality industry. The free-to-use tracker offers industry insights on the state of terminations, furloughs and pay-cuts, across industry categories and countries, collated from various sources and updated on daily basis. Virendra Jain, Cofounder and CEO, VIDEC, says, “The travel industry is crumbling before our eyes with more than half a million lay-offs in less than a month. Amid the global spread of the pandemic, companies of all shapes and sizes – from the billion-dollar valued to start-ups – are trimming costs, disbanding, and letting go off their most precious asset, the workforce. The Global Travel Staffing Barometer quantifies the discharged staff and aims to become the central hub for tracking the loss of human resources, and in time offer the first glimpses for the road to recovery for the travel industry.” According to this tracker, more than 500,000 workers in the travel, tourism and hospitality industries have been furloughed in the last three weeks.

Struggling Air Mauritius has entered voluntary administration after the board resolved that with the coronavirus grounding it would not be able to meet its financial obligations in the foreseeable future. Air Mauritius had already embarked on a transformation programme in January this year under which it was reviewing its business model in a bid to secure sustainability. Air Mauritius has become the second airline to enter administration proceedings in as many days voluntarily. Yesterday Australian carrier Virgin Australia also entered voluntary administration caused by the current crisis. In a company statement the airline’s board of directors state that while “substantial progress” was made in developing its action plan, the closure of borders and halting of air services because of the coronavirus has led to a “complete erosion of the company’s revenue base”. Air Mauritius was forced to suspend flights at the start of April because of the coronavirus restrictions. The airline’s board came to a decision following “a complete erosion of the company’s revenue base.”  In its letter, the airline stated that its entire revenue base had been eroded. The erosion has been caused by a decrease in demand tied to many different travel bans enacted by separate national governments. The airline believes that demand will not begin to return until the end of 2020. “There is uncertainty as to when international air traffic will resume and all indications tend to show that normal activities will not pick up until late 2020,” the airline says.    

As initiated and facilitated by the Government of Srilanka, SriLankan Airlines, brought back 829 Sri Lankans who were stranded in India. They have been arriving in the country, as Sri Lanka was going into 48-hour quarantine curfew, since Friday , March 20,to Sunday 22nd 2020. The Airline wishes to state that these passengers had travelled to India on other airlines and were stranded there as the carriers concerned stopped operations to Colombo due to travel restrictions. The National Carrier took every measure to bring them home swiftly and safely, given that these passengers mainly consisted of senior citizens, an age group that has been advised to take extra precautions to be safe from the virus. Ever since the global outbreak, SriLankan Airlines has been playing a pivotal role in facilitating passage home to many Sri Lankans, which includes the mercy flight that was operated to Wuhan. The Airlines’ operational areas have been fully functional despite the government declared holidays and ‘work-from-home’ , and the staff members have been attending to their work dedicatedly and diligently, understanding fully the role that they are expected to play during these difficult times. SriLankan Airlines, going above and beyond the call of duty and not aiming at any commercial fulfillment despite the irretrievable impact this has made on business, has continued to step in and fulfil what is expected of the National Carrier, thus playing its part of staying united as a country in this crucial hour. Our Global Contact Center(0197331979), including Airport ticket office offering 24×7 service to our valuable customers for their ticket related services.

Three big trade bodies got on a joint call recently with MoCA along with five Indian and international airlines to discuss travel agent woes and underline urgent issues specially the deposits put in by agents into the low-cost airlines, which effectively is the agent’s advance. On call were representatives of Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism & Hospitality (FAITH), Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI), Travel Agents Association Of India (TAAI) speaking with Pradeep Singh Kharola, Secretary of Aviation, MoCA. The airlines that were part of the call included representatives of Indigo, SpiceJet, Vistara, GoAir, AirAsia. Kharola gave both parties a platform to present their urgent issues. Consequent to the discussion, he strongly requested the airlines to look into the issues presented by the agents, and to revert within a short span of time with a solution. MoCA has also requested the airlines to come back within in 24 hours on the agent money in Float accounts as advance to be refunded in cash of group deposits and cancellations. MoCA also requested the airlines to co-operate. Rajat Bagaria, Joint Secretary, TAFI National, who was part of the call says, “We had already started booking seats from April 15 onwards as they were very urgent cases like people wanting to return home. One client’s father had passed away in Kolkata so he had to take the first flight out even though he could not attend the funeral. There are so many reasons why people have to go back including maternity issues.”  

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released updated analysis showing that the COVID-19 crisis will see airline passenger revenues drop by $314 billion in 2020, a 55% decline compared to 2019. On 24 March IATA estimated $252 billion in lost revenues (-44% vs. 2019) in a scenario with severe travel restrictions lasting three months. Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO, says, “The industry’s outlook grows darker by the day. The scale of the crisis makes a sharp V-shaped recovery unlikely. Realistically, it will be a U-shaped recovery with domestic travel coming back faster than the international market. We could see more than half of passenger revenues disappear. That would be a $314 billion hit. Several governments have stepped up with new or expanded financial relief measures but the  situation remains critical. Airlines could burn through $61 billion of cash reserves in the second quarter alone. That puts at risk 25 million jobs dependent on aviation. And without urgent relief, many airlines will not survive to lead the economic recovery.”

Singapore has recently announced massive financial support for specific sectors that have been badly hit by the COVID-19 outbreak, including the aviation, tourism, land transport and arts and culture industries under its Resilience Budget. This was revealed by GB Srithar, Regional Director (India, Middle East and South Asia), Singapore Tourism Board, during the first-ever TravTalk Digital Conclave. Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat announced more than SG$ 48 billion (approx. US$ 33.7 billion) in different areas related to tourism. The aviation sector alone will get SG$ 350 million of additional support. Sridhar was part of the second session that focussed on present circumstances and possible future for tourism. About SG$ 90 million has been set aside to help the tourism industry rebound. A separate SG$ 55 million support package has been allocated to sustain and revive the arts and culture sector. The fund will also include Point-to-Point Support Package for taxi and private hire car drivers, who will receive the Special Relief Fund payments of SG$ 300 per vehicle per month until the end of September 2020. The government will also offer one-year road tax rebate and six-month waiver of parking charges at government-managed parking facilities for private bus owners.  

Kapil Talking on revival plan for airlines, Kapil Kaul, CEO & Director, CAPA South Asia during the TravTalk Digital Conclave said that every airline right now is waiting for a government bailout. “Airlines need government support in terms of a bailout package at the earliest. Airlines almost have no cash flow or no excess cash reserves. The revival of airlines posts COVID-19 crisis must be conditional based on international best practices. They need to have the cash for 2-3 months to function efficiently,” he said. Kaul further said, “If the crisis continues for a longer duration, we will have a smaller, shrinking industry. Possibly some exits possible as well. We might see consolidation in the market and possibly the repair would begin from thereafter.”