Tag Archives: Air India

Air India will add two more direct flights connecting Kolkata with Bangkok and Jaipur from October 15. The two non-stop flights, to be operated by the Airbus 320neo aircraft with two-class configuration, will fulfil a long-standing demand of passengers for a convenient connection to both Bangkok and Jaipur by the carrier from Kolkata. Flight AI 336 from Kolkata to Bangkok will be operated three days a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. It will depart from Kolkata at 3.50 pm (local time) and arrive in Bangkok at 8.05 pm (local time). The incoming flight AI 337 will leave Bangkok at 5.15 am (local time) and reach Kolkata at 7 am (local time). Meanwhile, flight AI 737 to Jaipur will take off from Kolkata at 8.40 am to reach Jaipur at 11.10 am. The return flight will take off from Jaipur at 12.20 pm and land in Kolkata at 3 pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Source: PTI

Morocco, in an endeavour to double its tourist footfalls from India by 2019, has set up a Moroccan National Tourist Office in Delhi as the first step towards promotion of Morocco as a desirable destination for Indians. His Excellency Mohammed Sajid, Minister of Tourism and Air Transport, Kingdom of Morocco talked about his strategies to boost tourism from India. He said, “In our recent meeting with K J Alphons, Minister of State (I/C) for Tourism, Government of India, we signed an MoU to promote tourism in both the countries. We will be working on our products in Morocco as well as in India. There is also a lot of similarity in both these countries in terms of heritage, civilisation, etc. We will be signing an agreement in air transport field with Civil Aviation. In this trip to India, we have with us the chief of our national transport Royal Air Maroc. We will be having discussions with Air India and other local LCCs to facilitate flights between both the countries.” Morocco is one of the most beautiful cities in Africa with some of the most hypnotic street markets. Moroccan-Indian relations are getting stronger as Morocco prepares to implement several measures to welcome more of Indian tourists in 2019.  

Booking.com has partnered with Air India to offer the airline’s customers access to over 28.9 million accommodation listings, including everything from homes, apartments, villas to world-class hotels and resorts from the Air India website. Stewart Jones, Regional Director – Strategic Partnerships, APAC, Booking.com said, “Air India makes it the perfect partner for us to showcase our global online accommodation offering to their domestic and international customers. As India is poised to become the third largest aviation market by 2020 with its fast-growing outbound travel market, we are happy to combine our strengths with Air India’s to deliver the best travel experience to travellers across the country.” Madhu Mathen, General Manager – Sales and Marketing, Air India said, “Booking.com’s global reach and unique accommodation offerings is a key reason we chose the online accommodation platform as one of our first accommodation partner. As a member of the world’s largest airline alliance – Star Alliance, Air India has passengers that are globe-trotters. Partnering with Booking.com enables us at Air India to provide our customers a broad & unique variety of accommodation options in any city we fly them to.”  

In a recent communication to Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), Air India has agreed to TAAI’s request to give travel agents a backend incentive of 3 per cent on international sector and 8 per cent on domestic sector on Electronic Miscellaneous Document (EMD) value exclusive of taxes for issuance of EMD for preferred seat selection. This incentive will be apart from normal commission applicable on sale of Preferred Seat Selection (PSS). The communication states that the backend incentive will be payable on a quarterly basis to BSP India agents on flown revenue basis. This means that other than the normal commission, agents will also be eligible for this incentive.

Vienna has witnessed a 4.3 per cent rise in Indian tourists this year with 66,828 bed nights in the first six months. India is one of the high growth tourist markets for Vienna along with China and Russia. Last year in the same period, 64,075 Indians winged their way to Vienna. Tourist arrivals rose to 30,445 in January-Jun 2018 recording a growth of 5% (compared to 29,022 the same period last year). June 2018 saw a growth of near 8 per cent with Indian travellers recording 23,499 bed nights. Tourist arrivals grew 11.7 per cent to 10,659 in the Jan-June 2018 period from 9543 in the year ago period. The rising number of Indian travellers to the city of castles and palaces has been aided by growing direct air connectivity. Air India had been operating a direct Delhi-Vienna flight three days a week. This year, the Maharaja added one more flight to the Austrian capital in its summer schedule enhancing seating capacity by 33 per cent.

Air India and Ethiopian Airlines, both members of Star Alliance and with an extensive network in their home countries, have agreed to strengthen their cooperation by expanding the current free-sale codeshare agreement, thereby allowing Air India to access Ethiopian Airlines’ network in Africa and Ethiopian Airlines to access Air India’s network in Australia and Hong Kong, in addition to the Indian domestic points. Tadesse Tilahun, Regional Director for Indian subcontinent, Ethiopian Airlines, commented, “The expanded codeshare cooperation between Ethiopian Airlines and Air India gives seamless connection to our esteemed customers. He added, on top of the seamless connection, passengers will get more benefits such as accruing their miles as both airlines belong to the largest airlines alliance – Star Alliance.” “Air India’s esteemed passengers now have access to multiple destinations in the African countries served by Ethiopian Airlines through this expanded cooperation with our long standing partner airline, Ethiopian Airlines, viz through Addis Ababa to Accra, Seychelles, Mombasa, Gaborone, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Kilimanzaro and Zanzibar vv sectors besides the existing access through Addis Ababa to Nairobi, Dar-Es-Salaam, Harare, Entebbe and Kigali vv sectors. Likewise, Ethiopian Airlines customers will be able to access a number of points on Air India network through Delhi to Hong Kong, Melbourne and Sydney vv sectors besides the existing access through Mumbai and Delhi to Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Goa, Jaipur vv sectors”, said Seema Srivastava, Executive Director – Strategy and Planning, Air India.  

In an effort to promote inbound tourism from important source markets, PATA India Chapter, in collaboration with Ministry of Tourism, will conduct India Tourism B2B Meet to Europe from September 25-October 4, 2018. Meetings are proposed to be held with travel agents and tours operators in Rome, Milan, Frankfurt, Barcelona, Geneva and Paris. The roadshow will commence with an introduction of sellers and a 15-minute Incredible India presentation, followed by a 5-minute product presentation by Air India. Each roadshow will have a two-hour B2B session between Indian sellers and local tour operators and travel agents. All these markets have a variety of travellers representing both high end as well as mid-market. Their interest in India as a preferred destination is well established over many years and is focused on its history, culture, wellness, beach tourism amongst others. Air India will support the association with preferred air fares for delegates participating in these roadshows. 100 per cent of the basic fare will be waived on each ticket as per the applicable booking class for such tickets. Participants will only be charged applicable taxes, fuel surcharge and government levies for travel. Authority for tickets will be issued on a first come first serve basis, only after full non-refundable participation fee has been paid by the participating organisation.    

Three weeks after not being able to attract any bids for the debt-ridden Air India, The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) is set to review its plans to divest the national carrier. Speaking at a press conference to announce the initiatives and achievements of the Ministry in the last four years, Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister of Civil Aviation, said, “The government’s plans to change the decision of disinvestment of Air India stands as it is. However, since no bids came till May 31, which was the last date for expression of interest: we will review the conditions of disinvestment. We have a committee headed by Arun Jaitley, Minister of Finance, to review the plans for Air India and regular meetings are being held to come to a decision on that.”  

Air India has announced an assured flat incentive scheme for travel agents in BSP India, effective on sale starting April 5, 2018 till March 31, 2019. Under the scheme, every agent shall be entitled to 1 per cent normal commission and 1 per cent assured flat incentive on all 098 tickets sold by the agency. According to a statement by Air India, this incentive is not linked to achievement of any target and shall accrue on cut and pay basis without deal code. Therefore, there will be no time lag for receipt of incentive. The current year assured incentive is based on sales and not on flown revenue. This has been done to instantly reward the agency to promote Air India.

Air India will begin non-stop flight operations from New Delhi to Tel Aviv in Israel starting March 22, 2018, onwards. The carrier has confirmed flying thrice a week on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday on Air India’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner that has 18 business class and 238 economy seats. The aircraft will depart from New Delhi at 4.50 pm and arrive in Tel Aviv at 8.25 pm. On its return leg, the plane will depart from Tel Aviv at 10.15 pm and land in Delhi the next day at 9 am. With one way duration of 7 hours and 10 minutes, Air India will be the fastest nonstop flight between India and Israel taking a straight route between the two countries. In addition to Air India, Israel’s national carrier El Al currently has four weekly nonstop flights from Mumbai to Tel Aviv and will soon increase its frequency furthermore. Arkia has also expressed interest to begin operations soon and introduce direct flights between Israel and India.The Ministry of Tourism along with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will continue to facilitate similar introductions including relaxing visa requirements and express visa services through VFS to encourage Indian travelers to visit Israel. This announcement has come at a time when Israel Ministry of Tourism has recorded a whopping growth of 50 per cent in January and 25 per cent in February 2018, of Indian arrivals to Israel vis-à-vis the same period in 2017. Hassan Madah, Director, Israel Ministry of Tourism India & Philippines, says, “In light of the significant increase in incoming tourism from India over the past few years, the Ministry of Tourism has been in talks with Air India and other airlines …