Category Archives: Aviation

IndiGo has announced that it will start operations to Agra with the launch of a direct non-stop flight from Bengaluru on March 5, under the government’s regional connectivity scheme UDAN, revealed William Boulter, Chief Commercial Officer, IndiGo. Agra will be IndiGo’s 63rd destination and 86th overall in its network, which also has flight services to 23 international airports. The airline already operates flights to and from Allahabad, Gorakhpur, Lucknow and Varanasi. “It gives us pleasure to announce Agra as the 63rd domestic destination in our network. Operating exclusively under the UDAN scheme, the new services will promote trade and tourism in the region through increased mobility,” said Boulter. With its fleet of over 250 aircraft, the airline offers 1,500 daily flights, connecting 63 domestic destinations and 23 international destinations.

V Ravindran, Regional Manager-India & Bangladesh, SriLankan Airlines, has revealed that they have plans to add Ahmedabad and Calicut to their list of destinations in India. Ravindran revealed, “We are focusing on M!CE from India. We also have some new destinations to be added as per the business plan, but subject to aircraft procurement. Ahmedabad and Calicut are going to be the latest Indian destinations to be connected via SriLankan. With that, we are going to fly to 11 destinations in India, and we will start a minimum of 4 flights a week. We also have plans to operate to Sydney. We are already flying to Melbourne 4 daily flights and we have plans to come start operations to Sydney as well. This will be a good product for the Indian leisure market specifically to Australia.”

Virgin Atlantic will be flying from Delhi to Manchester with services taking to the skies from October 2020 onwards. For the first time, Virgin Atlantic will fly from India to Manchester. Coupled with the airline’s double daily service from Delhi to Heathrow and daily service from Mumbai to Heathrow, the airline will now offer over 600,000 seats per year between India and UK. Juha Jarvinen, Chief Commercial Officer, Virgin Atlantic commented: “2020 marks our 20th anniversary of flying to India and as the destination continues to grow in popularity for both business and leisure travel, we’re thrilled to announce for very first time a new service flying three times a week from Delhi to Manchester, our home in the north.’’

In an effort to further promote the Rann Utsav, Gujarat state aviation infrastructure company limited has added direct flights between Bhuj- Ahmedabad and Bhuj- Delhi from 27th February 2020 till 12 March 2020. The flights connecting Ahmedabad and Bhuj will be operated by Air Deccan and the flights connecting Bhuj and Delhi will be operated by Zoom Air. These new flights and connectivity were promoted at a tour operators meeting in New Delhi.

AirAsia India leads in the On-Time Performance (OTP) metric of scheduled domestic airlines for the month of January 2020 as reported for four metro airports viz. Bangalore, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai, according to the latest statistics released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). With a fleet of 29 aircraft catering to 21 destinations, AirAsia India currently operates over 200 daily flights and carried over 9 lakh passengers during January 2020. AirAsia India has been soaring in terms of offering its customers a mix of business and leisure destinations at pocket friendly prices. AirAsia India’s commitment to improving its guests experience has also resulted in witnessing one of the lowest cancellation and complaint ratios in Jan’ 20. Sunil Bhaskaran, CEO & MD, AirAsia India said, “We’re delighted that our efforts to streamline processes and our relentless focus on being guest obsessed have enabled us to achieve category leadership on the key industry metrics for on-time performance, complaint ratios and cancellation percentage. It has been our endeavor to provide exceptional service to our guests whilst also ensuring they reach their destinations on time, every single time”

In IATA’s recently released 20-year air passenger forecast, India will displace the UK to be the third largest aviation market with 278 million passengers in 2026. More passengers mean bigger crowds and more stringent security requirements, adding up to longer queues and greater potential for disruption. These factors could be why travellers are increasingly prioritising comfort over more functional concerns such as cost and efficiency.

Air India has resumed the biweekly flight operations from the Kozhikode to Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) after 5 years, revealed Ministry of Civil Aviation in a recent tweet. The flight between Calicut International Airport and Jeddah would be using a Boeing 747-400, to operate on a Monday and Saturday every week. The flight will land at Calicut at 7.05 a.m. and depart for Jeddah at 5.30 p.m. The flight will reach Jeddah at 9.15 p.m. From Jeddah, the flight will depart from Fridays and Sundays at 11.15 p.m. Regarding configuration, the jet will have 12 seats for first class, 26 for business and 385 for economy.

Jazeera Airways has announced a five per cent IATA commission for all the tickets that trade partners issue through its CRS partners, Amadeus and Galileo. This offer is with effect from 14 February, 2020 till 31 March, 2020. The code to avail  commission is 1A: FM05 and 1G: TMU1Z05.  

Senior bureaucrat Rajiv Bansal has been appointed as the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of Air India, according to a Personnel Ministry order. Bansal, a 1988-batch IAS officer of Nagaland cadre, is at present additional Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The post became vacant after incumbent Ashwani Lohani completed his tenure. Source: PTI  

After announcing direct flights between Ahmedabad and Kuala Lumpur from April 29, 2020, AirAsia has launched the “Chalo! India” sales campaign to celebrate lower tourist e-visa fees to travel to India. This promotion will run until February 16 for travel between 29 April 2020 to 30 October 2020. Fly from Kuala Lumpur to Bhubaneswar, Cochin, Kolkata from as low as RM229 one-way, or to Jaipur, Delhi, Amritsar from as low as RM299 one-way. All promotional fares are available for booking on airasia.com or AirAsia mobile app. The campaign is offering flights from Kuala Lumpur to Bhubaneswar, Cochin, Kolkata from as low as RM229 one-way, or to Jaipur, Delhi, Amritsar from as low as RM299 one-way. All promotional fares are available for booking on airasia.com or AirAsia mobile app. On this, Benyamin Ismail, CEO, AirAsia X Malaysia said, “India has never been more affordable so there is no better time to travel. We are running some of our biggest sales yet to every India destination we fly to, including this new route from Kuala Lumpur to Ahmedabad. At the same time, the cost for the tourist e-visa fee for Malaysians is currently at its lowest. We thank the Indian government for lowering the visa fees for Malaysians to facilitate tourism growth. India is a must-see destination on many people’s travel list, and we are confident that our latest promotional campaigns and extensive flight network will stimulate travel to India and also entice more Indian travellers to visit Malaysia in conjunction with Visit Malaysia Year 2020” Government of India had reduced the country’s e-visa fee from USD100 (1-year multiple-entry tourist e-visa) to USD10 (30-days tourist e-visa for April to June; USD25 for …