Tag Archives: LCC

India has emerged as the global leader in the low-cost carrier market. Data from OAG revealed that LCCs, primarily IndiGo, account for 71% of India’s total airline seat capacity, surpassing the global average of 34%. In contrast, aviation giants like China rely on full-service carriers.

Mike Barrera, VP, Product Management, Low-Cost Carrier Segment, Sabre said that LCCs need to prioritize choosing a technology partner which offers security and reliability; ensuring their chosen technology is easy to use and train, especially given staff shortages and high turnover rates in the current travel industry; and selecting best-of-breed technology that has scalability and modularity so offer management systems can interact seamlessly with order systems. 

Indian LCC SpiceJet has introduced daily non-stop flights from Rajkot to Goa and Hyderabad. Flights will depart Rajkot at 14:00 hrs for Goa and at 19:45 hrs for Hyderabad. The return flight from Goa will depart at 17:05 hrs and that from Hyderabad will depart at 06:05 hrs. The carrier has also added to its Rajkot-Mumbai frequency, departing at 07:30 hrs and 05:40 hrs, respectively.

Indian LCC SpiceJet has introduced new exclusive non-stop flights from Patna to Surat and Bagdogra. The thrice-weekly flight to Surat and back will operate on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, while the Patna-Bagdogra-Patna route will be operated on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. The airline has also launched new flights between Patna and Kolkata that will operate thrice weekly.

Indian LCC IndiGo claims that the airline has already processed close to Rs1030 crore of refunds, which amounts to about 99.95% of the total amount owed to its customers. The pending credit shells are mostly cash transactions wherein IndiGo is awaiting bank transfer details from the customers.

SpiceJet has secured slots at London Heathrow Airport to operate flights effective September 1, 2020. This is presently under the bubble arrangement between India and UK and effective end of summer schedule i.e. October 23, 2020. It is in discussion to secure slots for winter schedule for regular operations.

Thailand-based low-cost carrier (LCC) is set to launch four weekly direct flights connecting New Delhi and Bangkok from December 19, 2018. It has also announced a special promotional one-way Economy Class fare starting from Rs 7,200 (USD 99), inclusive of taxes and surcharges. The special promotional fares are available from December 07 to 31, 2018 for travel between December 19, 2018 to March 30, 2019. The new services will be operated with Boeing 777-200 wide-bodied, twin-aisle jets. Configured with a total of 415 seats, the Boeing 777 offers an unprecedented LCC level of comfort to customers with 24 seats in ScootBiz Class and 391 seats in Economy. Giam Ming Toh, Deputy CEO, NokScoot, said, “We are proud to announce NokScoot’s inaugural service from Delhi to Bangkok on December 19, 2018.  This route marks our first ever service to South Asia and follows the launch of services to Tokyo Narita in June 2018 and Osaka Kansai in October 2018.”

Sharing plans for 2018, K. Shyam Sundar, CEO, Air India Express, said that the focus for the LCC will be Kannur, located about 90 kms north of Calicut, which is slated to get a brand new international airport this year. Sundar says, “The focus market for us for 2018-19 will be Kannur. We expect the new airport to be functional by June 2018. We have requested the Kerala Government to allow us to be the first carrier to operate international flights from the new airport. In fact, the two aircraft we are going to induct is probably going to be based or largely operated to and from Kannur. We intend to connect Kannur to about four to five destinations in the Gulf.” Kannur is an extremely important market for AIE. The new airport is a PPP project and will be larger than the one in Calicut in terms of runway length. It will be a table-top airport. Currently, passengers from Kannur have to travel to Calicut to take flights. Sundar also revealed that AIE will make its four-month old non-stop Madurai-Singapore flight to a daily in the summer schedule. It will also add some new routes in the summer which will be a direct link between Kochi, Kuwait and Bahrain. Air India Express currently flies to 15 international destinations: Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, Ras Al Khaimah, Bahrain, Dammam, Doha, Kuwait, Muscat, Salalah, Singapore, KualaLumpur, Riyadh & Dhaka from 15 Indian cities – Kozhikode, Kochi, Thiruvananthpuram, Mangalore, Chennai, Tiruchirapally, Mumbai, Pune, Amritsar, Lucknow, Jaipur, Varanasi, New Delhi, Kolkata and Chandigarh. On the domestic front, it operates flights between Chennai-Thiruvananthpuram-Chennai, Kozhikode-Thiruvananthpuram-Kozhikode, Kochi-Thiruvananthpuram-Kochi and Kochi-Kozhikode.