Tag Archives: Air India

National carrier, Air India has become the first airline to launch self check-in kiosks for its domestic fliers that aims to make the check-in process expeditious. The exclusive service presently covers 26 domestic centers at Aurangabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Calicut, Coimbatore, Cochin, Chennai, Goa, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Jamnagar, Jodhpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Nagpur, New Delhi, Mumbai, Mangalore, Raipur, Rajkot, Trivandrum, Udaipur, Visakhapatnam and Varanasi. Under this initiative, started on May 1, 2016, customers can procure the boarding pass by using the self-check-in kiosks also known as CUSS (Common Use Self Service) near the check-in area at the airport.

Air India has launched its services on two new routes — Bhopal-Jabalpur-Hyderabad and Bhopal-Raipur-Pune sectors from May 23, 2016, on its wholly owned subsidiary Alliance. The fares for Bhopal-Jabalpur-Hyderabad, as well as Bhopal-Raipur-Pune flight start from Rs 2601 one way. The new flights come as part of its Connect India programme. These services will fulfill a long standing demand of the students’ community, IT, Industrial and defence sectors. Alliance Air will operate a 72-seater ATR aircraft on these routes thus giving connectivity to smaller destinations within the country under the Government’s scheme of connecting all cities in India. Flight AI 9863 on Bhopal-Jabalpur-Hyderabad shall operate four days a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. The flight will take-off from Bhopal at 0845 hrs. and reach Jabalpur at 0950 hrs. The flight will take-off from Jabalpur at 1020 hrs. for its onward journey and will reach Hyderabad at 1220 hrs. The return flight AI 9864 will take-off from Hyderabad at 1250 hrs. and will reach Jabalpur at 1450 hrs. The flight will leave Jabalpur at 1450 hrs. and will touch down at Bhopal at 1625 hrs. Alliance Air will commence another direct flight AI 9867/9868 between Bhopal and Jabalpur from June 16, 2016. The flight will operate on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays thereby making the operation on this route. A daily one. The flight AI 9865 on the second route – Bhopal-Raipur-Pune – will take off from Bhopal at 0845 hrs. and reach Raipur at 1015 hrs. The flight will leave Raipur at 1045 hrs. and will reach Pune at 1300 hrs. The return flight AI 9866 will leave Pune at 1330 hrs. and reach Raipur at 1545 hrs., depart …

Air India recorded a growth of 25 per cent in passenger traffic to Singapore in 2015 making it one of the top contributors in terms of absolute growth in passenger carriage between Singapore and South Asia. The growth in Air India’s passenger traffic far exceeded the overall increase in passenger traffic at Changi Airport last year, which increased to 55.4 million passengers corresponding to an increase of 2.6 per cent. Indian nationals accounted for over six per cent of Changi’s total traffic with 3.4 million Indian travellers passing through the airport in 2015. According to Changi Airport’s statement, Air India’s growth in passenger carriage on its Singapore routes in 2015, is largely spurred by an increased passenger capacity due to aircraft upgrade, as well as an expansion of routes in the last two years. Air India increased capacity on its Singapore routes last year, and now operates 42 weekly flights to the Singapore, including daily services from Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. Singapore is now connected to 13 Indian cities with 404 weekly flights. The statement further added that the passenger traffic between India and Singapore is set to grow, with Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Silk Air’s (SIA’S subsidiary) recently increased frequencies to Cochin, Colombo, Hyderabad and Trivandrum and low-cost carrier Scoot’s entry to the Indian market from May 2016. Source: PTI

The inaugural day of the India Aviation 2016 saw Air India sign an agreement with ALAFCO, a Kuwait based leasing company for leasing 14 Airbus A320neo aircraft. The delivery of aircraft is likely to start from early next year. The historic agreement was signed between Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani and the Vice Chairman and CEO of ALAFCO Ahmad Al Zabin in the presence of CEO of CFM Paul Abanga and Philippe Combet Vice President Sales and his team from Airbus. This induction will augment Air India’s capacity in domestic market. Air India already has strong infrastructure maintenance facilities for the Airbus A320 family. The partnership between Air India and Airbus dates back to 1989 when the erstwhile Indian Airlines became the launch customer to induct the Airbus A320. Speaking on the momentous occasion Ashwani Lohani CMD Air India said, “This is a very important partnership for Air India. The A320 aircraft will add strength to our existing fleet and enhance our role as a major player in the domestic market.” These A320neo aircraft will come fitted with the new generation CFM leap engines which will reduce noise and emissions, enhance the operational efficiency and reduce fuel consumption by at least 15% while offering the passengers the best in class comfort. Air India and CFM enjoy a long standing partnership as CFM engines are fitted on the existing A320 family aircraft.”

Air India has launched an Air Pass for pilgrims to major Buddhist cities in India, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. This coupon-based scheme for journeys originating in Yangon and Colombo, and is applicable to all types of journeys in economy class, except group travel. Under this scheme one can combine destinations Myanmar, Sri Lanka and India in a single journey. The fares are divided into four schemes—two for flights originating from Myanmar and two from Sri Lanka. Under scheme one can avail ex-Yangon six flight coupons for US$600, while scheme two offers eight ex-Yangon coupons for US$800. Schemes three and four are for flights from Sri Lanka, which offers six coupons for US$450 or eight coupons for US$800. Tickets can be booked at Air India offices or through travel agents, and are valid for 60 days from the start date of the journey.

Air India operated the longest all-women crew flight from New Delhi to San Francisco on March 6, to celebrate International Women’s Day. The “historic” New Delhi – San Francisco flight had 14 crew members and four pilots, all women. The flight left on March 6 and will return on March 8, reports PTI. Besides, the national carrier today said it would be operate over 20 all-women crew flights in domestic routes on March 8 to commemorate International Women’s Day. Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani had said that the flight to San Francisco on March 6 will be a symbol of “women empowerment”. “It will be a historic flight and the longest to be operated by all-women crew,” Lohani had said. The state-run airline has around 3,800 women workforce of the total 27,500 people with 20,500 of them regular. Duration of the flight would be more than 15 hours. According to him, the airline has immense respect for women and everyone associated with the flight, including pilots, engineers and those at the gate would be women. Every year, Air India operates all-women flights to celebrate the international women’s day.

Come April 6, Air India will commence flights between Delhi and Vienna. This will be Air India’s eighth European destination. The flight will operate thrice a week on AI’s Boeing 787. It will leave from New Delhi at 1400 hours (IST) and land at Vienna at 18:45 hours(local time). On the way back, the flight will leave Vienna at 22.45 hours and arrive in Delhi the next day at 09.25 hours(IST). The national carrier is also in talks with Austrian Airlines for a code-share. Vienna drew a record number of 40,355 Indians in 2015, accounting for 89,628 overnight stays. While the number of Indians visiting Vienna increased by 49.5 per cent over last year, the number of overnight stays grew by 38.7 per cent, according to Vienna Tourist Board. As per the data, the growth in Indian visitors to Vienna was among the highest after the Arabic countries and Taiwan. During 2015 overnight stays crossed the 14 million mark for the first time, representing a healthy 5.9 per cent increase of over previous year.

SpiceJet maintained its position as the airline with the highest passenger load factor at 92.1 per cent in January 2016. Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January 2016 were 76.55 lakhs as against 62.45 lakhs during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 22.58 per cent. Other domestic airlines recording high passenger load factor are GoAir, IndiGo, Air Costa, Jet, Jet Lite, Air India, among others. The PLF of GoAir was the second highest at 84.9 per cent, lower than its PLF of 86.5 per cent in December 2015. IndiGo which saw the third highest PLF at 84.7 per cent in January 2016, fell from its previous high og 88.5 per cent. Passenger load factor on national carrier Air India was 81.7 per cent in January lower than its previous performance of 86.7 per cent in December last year.

National carrier Air India will charge Rs 500 more on its domestic flight ticket cancellation. After the proposed revised charges come into effect, the Government-run carrier would deduct as much as Rs 2,000 in case of “no-show” by a passenger at the time of a domestic flight departure, according to a PTI report. The move comes days after budget airline SpiceJet hiking its ticket cancellation charges to Rs 1,899 from Rs 1,800 earlier. The airline has already issued the circular with revised charges to travel agents early last week, the report read.

Air India has agreed to accept travel agents’ corporate credit card for booking, revealed Sunil Kumar, President, Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI). Speaking in New Delhi, at the UFTAA presentation for TAAI Northern Region members, he revealed that the team of TAAI had a meeting with Ashwani Lohani, CMD, Air India; Pankaj Srivastava, Director-Commercial, Air India, and other representative of the national carrier. “I am very impressed with the response from Ashwani Lohani, Pankaj Srivastava, and the entire team of Air India on allowing travel agents to use their corporate credit cards to do ticketing. We have been consistently talking to them on the airline having no objection if a customer uses his credit card, or the agent uses the customer’s credit card. However, the agent could not use his corporate credit card to make the booking. However, they listened to us, and we are highly obliged that may be within a week, the agent corporate credit card will be used by Air India as a form of payment.”