Tag Archives: Air India

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.”

Starting February 1, Air India will enhance frequency on its Delhi-Surat sector from 4 days to 7 days. At present, Air India operates a, CRJ-700 aircraft four times a week. The flight AI 0607 departs from Delhi at 0745 hrs and arrives Surat at 0925 hrs. The return flight AI 0608 leaves Surat at 0955 hrs and lands in Delhi at 1135 hrs. Delhi-Surat-Delhi AI flight is highly popular among textile and diamond businessmen and provides seamless connectivity between two business cities. It also offers convenient connections to other international flights from/to Delhi.

In view of the recent security alert in the country, Air India has requested passengers to report at the counter at least three hours prior for check-in to allow passengers and their baggage to undergo more stringent checks at airports and avoid any delays to the flight departures owing to these procedures. Though the minimum reporting time for domestic flights is 75 minutes and for international flights it is 150 minutes before the scheduled departure of flights, the airline has advised passengers to report three hours before the scheduled departure of flights. Currently, check-in counters for domestic flights close 45 minutes before scheduled time of departure. For international flights, counters close 60 minutes prior to departure. Counters for flights (both domestic and international) operating from International Terminals like in Mumbai close 60 minutes before scheduled departure of flight. Boarding gates in both cases close 25 minutes prior to departure.

Air India has announced that it will operate a new flight from New Delhi to Gorakhpur, six days a week, starting January 15, 2016. The flight will offer connection to flyers travelling to various domestic and international destinations from Gorakhpur. This would also offer a convenient connection to Gorakhpur from Delhi to passengers arriving from the Gulf and other international destinations. This is the latest destination to be added to Air India’s network under its Connecting India programme. India’s national carrier, also launched operations between Mumbai and Gwalior with ATR-72 aircraft and also connected Durgapur to Delhi and Kolkata with an A319 flight. Air India will operate a 70 seater ATR 72-600 aircraft between Delhi and Gorakhpur. The flight AI 9809 will depart from Delhi at 1215 hrs and arrive Gorakhpur at 1415 hrs. On the return leg, flight AI 9810 will depart from Gorakhpur at 1445 hrs and reach Delhi at 1645 hrs. The flight will operate six days a week on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.