Tag Archives: Air India

Travelport has announced that it had won a competitive tender process undertaken by Air India for the sole provision of distribution of its domestic flight content. The contract awarded to Travelport will begin to come into effect from November 2018 and be fully implemented by the end of 2019. The agreement confirms Air India’s continued deployment of Travelport Rich Content and Branding, now used by over 270 airlines. This displays airlines’ graphical content, their fares families and a full range of ancillary products. Travelport has seen a rapid expansion in India in recent years following the acquisition of business from the largest online travel agencies like MakeMyTrip, Ibibo, Yatra, EaseMyTrip and ClearTrip as well as working with the major corporate travel agencies and new entrants to the travel sector such as Paytm. Pradeep Singh Kharola, Chairman and Managing Director, Air India, said, “Air India is pleased to award this important contract to Travelport. In written submissions and in discussion with their team, the company demonstrated a clear understanding of our needs and displayed impressive technological and financial capability. As we make the switch to Travelport, we hope to be able to deliver even better value for money and a superior distribution to our customers in India and abroad.” Gordon Wilson, President and CEO, Travelport, commented, “Travelport is delighted to have been selected by Air India to provide these services. It is another welcome endorsement of our technology and our services in India. We look forward to implementing the agreement and delivering a world-class service to the airline.”

Air India is set to directly connect Bengaluru with London via a three-times-a-week flight starting November 17. The new flight will be operated by a Boeing 787 (Dreamliner) aircraft on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from Bengaluru and on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from London. The national carrier has also offered special introductory two-way fare of Rs 1,29,500 for business class travel and Rs 35,220 for economy for the proposed flight. The flight AI 177 will depart Bengaluru at 05:25 hours and arrive London at 11:05 hours. In its return journey, the flight AI 178 will leave from London at 13:00 hours and arrive in Bengaluru at 04:00 hours, the airline said.  The non-stop flight will fulfil the long standing demand of IT professionals and health tourism in the region. Source: PTI

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.”