Indian-Aviation

Strong tailwinds are blowing for the scrapping of the restrictive overseas flying rule that does not let Indian carriers with less than five years of operation and 20 aircraft fly on international routes.  Apparently, it is being backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Even the civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathy Raju, who spoke on the sidelines of an Airports Authority of India (AAI) event on Friday in Delhi, batted for doing away with the 5/20 norm, which he feels, was "pulling down Indians". Kapil Kaul, CEO – South Asia and Middle East (ME), Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (Capa), has no doubt that 5/20 rule would be removed in the latest National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP) 2015, which has been in the making for over a year now. "I believe that 5/20 will go, irrespective of what riders they (those opposed to it) bring in. It will not stand any merit in the Prime Minister's court," he told dna.  The aviation minister also forcefully advocated for ...

CHENNAI: A Malaysia-bound flight, carrying 160 passengers on board, failed to take off from here today following a technical problem, airport officials said.  The Malaysian Airlines was moving on the runway when the pilots detected the problem, they said.  The passengers were safely offloaded and provided with accommodation in various hotels in the city, they said.  The aircraft was expected to resume its flight tomorrow, they added.  Read more at:  http://economictimes.indiatimes.com

International airlines have flooded the Indian market with discounted tickets as plunging oil prices have lowered their operating costs, despite the rupee's fall. Indian carriers, which pay for substantial costs in dollars, are also trying to match the offers. In the last one month, big global players like Qatar, Emirates, Etihad, British Airways, Jet and Air India had come out with special offers. According to travel portal Yatra, BA's special return fares for Delhi-New York start at Rs 64,000 against their usual Rs 88,000. Qatar Airways was offering return fares of about Rs 54,000 on this route. Similarly, Yatra said Etihad was offering Delhi-London-Delhi for about Rs 29,000 instead of the usual Rs 41,000. Qatar Airways recently concluded a travel fest where it was offering discounts of up to 50 per cent on its entire network. Similarly, Emirates was offering fares starting at Rs 19,000, Rs 34,000 and Rs 52,550 to the Gulf, Europe and Americas, respectively, till re...

GoAir said it has become the first airline in India to commercially operate night flights to Port Blair. The airline's maiden commercial charter flight G8 1291 took off from Bengaluru at 11.15 pm on January 20, 2016 and landed at Port Blair airport at 1:50 am.  As a part of its charter operations, GoAir will operate three night flights in this sector in January, five night flights in February and six night flights in March. All flights will arrive at Port Blair from Bengaluru at 1.50 am (past midnight) and depart for Bengaluru from Port Blair at 2.20 am. Effective March 27, 2016 and as per its new summer schedule, GoAir will also start operating its first ever daily direct flights to Port Blair from Bengaluru.  The flights will take off from Bengaluru at 2:40 pm and arrive in Port Blair at 5:15 pm while the return flights will take off from Port Blair at 11:25 am and arrive at Bengaluru at 2:05 am.  Read more at:  http://economictimes.indiatimes...

Union Minister of Civil Aviation P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju on Friday called upon various stakeholders to come up with new ideas for improved air services delivery in India.  "India is on the path of growth providing immense economic opportunities. Growth of air passenger traffic and air cargo traffic also needs to be given due importance. "There is a need to plan for the future while deriving inspiration from the past," Raju said in a statement.  Airports Authority of India (AAI) chairman R.K. Srivastava said India continues to remain one of the least air services penetrated market in the world with 0.4 trips per capita per annum compared to two in the US despite the projected growth. "India has strong 300 million middle income group with disposable income to travel at least once in a year by air," said Srivastava in the statement. Srivastava said India's airport terminals capacity as on date is 250 million while only 190 is being utilized. India needs...

The Civil Aviation Ministry today concluded consultations on the draft aviation policy with the stakeholders and the keenly awaited document will go for Cabinet approval as soon as some "minor issues" are resolved.  At a meeting held here, all the stake holders including the airlines, public and airport operators put across their "final views" on the policy, paving the way for the Ministry to prepare the draft note for Union Cabinet's approval.  "The idea was to get their views (of stakeholders). And we got the views," Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajpathi Raju said after the meeting.  The draft civil aviation policy was unveiled on October 30 last year. Comments on the draft policy were sought till November 30, 2015. The meeting, which lasted for more than two hours, was also attended by Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma, aviation secretary R N Choubey and other senior ministry officials besides representatives ...

At least 70 passengers were offloaded from a Raipur-bound Indigo flight at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport on Friday night for "unruly behaviour", following which the fliers lodged a complaint with the airport police, alleging they were harassed by the airline staff. The passengers, who as a group were travelling to Raipur from Hyderabad, were trying to exchange seats among themselves. An altercation erupted between the cabin crew and two to three members of the group over this. The airline in a statement said the passengers were offloaded "on the grounds of unruly behaviour" and an FIR has been lodged with local police in this regard. "Indigo confirms offloading of 70 passengers who were scheduled to fly on 6E-466 from Hyderabad to Raipur on the grounds of unruly behaviour," the statement said.  Read more at:  http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

Hoping to make extra revenue, airlines like Jet airways, Spicejet, Indigo and national carrier Air India have renewed their business strategies in last few weeks. The airlines are offering travel packages to passengers, including air travel, hotel bookings, sight seeing, car booking, customised tour packages, etc, a role that is traditionally done by the travel agents. Jet airways, on Wednesday, introduced holiday packages for popular destinations like Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, etc. The packages includes return economy airfare (inclusive of all taxes), airport transfers, star hotel accommodation with breakfast and sightseeing. "The packages are exceptionally convenient, affordable and ideal getaway options this winter," said Gaurang Shetty, senior vice president – commercial, Jet airways. Low cost carrier SpiceJet, last month rolled out an end-to-end travel solutions platform, offering customised travel packages. The officials said that customers need to simply...

Jet Airways is the second-largest airline in India, after IndiGo — both in terms of market share and passengers carried. For Jet Airways, 2015 has been an eventful year in which it not only posted profits in successive quarters, but announced the expansion of its international services. Of course, the company, which has been making news for frequent changes to its top management, continued with the trend when its current chief executive officer Cramer Bell stepped down after being in office for little over a year. Jet operates over 300 flights everyday to 74 destinations worldwide from its main hub at Mumbai and secondary hubs at Bengaluru, Chennai, New Delhi, Kolkata and Pune. Posting Profits A continued slide in oil prices helped the airline post profit for the first quarter ended June to the tune of Rs 222 crore as opposed to a net loss of Rs 218 crore in the same quarter a year ago. It also saw a 21 per cent jump in passengers carried in the first quarter. Naresh Goyal, ...

Passengers flying Air India can expect lesser flight delays in future, as the national carrier has introduced penal provision for pilots who report sick two hours before the flight time.  "Any pilot reporting sick to duty about two hours before the departure time of the flight will be penalised by deducting duration (in terms of hours) of the flight the pilot was to operate for his/her total flying hours," said a senior civil aviation ministry official, who did not want to be identified. Moreover, pilots will not be eligible for their flying allowance based on 72 hours if they do not fly for a minimum 45 hours a month, the official explained.  He further said that these rules are part of the wage settlement agreement between the national carrier and its pilots and has been approved by Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapati Raju. An Air India official said the idea is to discourage any sort of indiscipline and improve utilisation of pilots and the aircraft....