Category Archives: Aviation

Air India is planning to double its direct non-stop flights between Delhi and San Francisco (USA) from three times a week to daily in the winter schedule. According to a news report, a senior Air India official said, “This flight has clearly proved that it does not take years to develop a route. We are flying planes with average 88 per cent loads and are also meeting the total cost of the flight. We are going to make it a daily flight most likely from November.” Air India, which launched this flight last December, is the only airline that flies direct on this route. (Source: Economic Times)

Etihad Airways has introduced a first-of-its-kind senior citizens’ package offering enhanced privileges for the over 60s travelling from India to USA. Senior citizens flying from any of Etihad Airways’ 11 Indian gateway cities can benefit from added value services, including a 24/7 helpline number, pre-flight travel and medical checklist support and special assistance at check-in counters. Also on offer are fare reductions of up to 10 per cent in Business Class and 5 per cent in Economy until 31 August 2016, for travel by 31 December 2016, together with 60 per cent bonus Etihad Guest loyalty miles on every senior citizen ticket booking. The special package is applicable to guests aged over 60 flying in Business and Economy Class on Etihad Airways. Senior citizens are also assured of Indian meals and Indian cabin crew on all flights from India, as well as a large selection of latest and classic Indian movies on all flights from India to the USA. Neerja Bhatia, Etihad Airways Vice President Indian Subcontinent, said: “Etihad Airways is all about providing the highest levels of service, and both care and attention that our guests would normally experience at home.

To celebrate its 10 years in the domestic skies, IndiGo has launched a unique programme called – The 6E Explorer, to make travel more memorable and personalized for leisure and corporate travellers. The first of its kind, ‘The 6E Explorer Programme’ will go live on August 05, 2016 with the announcement of the call-for-entries across India to get passionate travellers on board as “6E Explorer”. Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed by the IndiGo leadership and external jury based on their passion for travel. The shortlisted Explorers will need to travel to a specific IndiGo destination and create fresh content in the form blogs, images & videos with their perspective of that city. This primary curated content will comprise of not so popular, seen or heard of places to eat, see, party, things to do; advise for family traveller, backpackers and much more. IndiGo will appoint one Explorer per state for an initial period of 1 year and each Explorer will be required to travel to at least 4-6 destinations within or outside his state. The Explorer will share his personalized travel experience on IndiGo website under the IndiGo destinations section. These personalised travel experiences will be populated on the website as “Travel advisory” for IndiGo passengers to view travel trends of the destinations the airline flies to. With the launch of this programme, IndiGo passengers are encouraged to refer to these travel advisories which is intended to enhance their travel experience.

SpiceJet flagged off its first flight from Gaya to Mecca for the Hajj 2016 season. The Airbus320 which departed on its schedule time of 11.30 AM from the Gaya airport carried 135 passengers onboard. The flight was inaugurated by Dr. Abdul Ghafoor, Minister of Minority Affairs, Government of Bihar, Kumar Ravi, District Magistrate, Gaya, Dilip Kumar, Airport Director, Gaya Airport and Sumant Rautela Head of Ground Services, SpiceJet along with of the Hajj Committee members. The airline will carry more than 8000 pilgrims on special flights for the annual Islamic pilgrimage Hajj in Mecca from Gaya and Indore. G.P. Gupta, Chief Administrative Officer and Accountable Manager, SpiceJet, said, “Hajj is a lifetime experience and SpiceJet will make every effort to ensure a hassle-free and delightful travel experience for all its passengers by delivering high on on-time performance and critical etiquettes ensuring absolute passenger satisfaction. We are grateful for being made a part of this humane operation and wish all our pilgrim passengers a wonderful stay at Mecca this year.” The airline has deployed two Airbus320 to ferry pilgrims from Gaya and Indore respectively. The flights will be operated from the two Indian cities to Jeddah and Madina between August 4 and September 3, 2016. The return journey for the pilgrims back to Gaya is scheduled from September 21 and to Indore from October 1. The whole activity is expected to be executed by October 20, 2016.

India continues to lead all markets with a 23.3 per cent rise in domestic traffic in June, propelled by strong growth in real consumer spending as well as by the fact that airlines are adding airport pairs and frequencies. This was revealed in International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) global passenger traffic data for June. Demand for domestic travel climbed 5.7 per cent this June compared to June 2015, while capacity increased 4.3 per cent, causing load factor to rise 1.1 percentage points to 83.2 pre cent. All markets reported demand increases with the exception of Brazil. Domestic RPKs account for about 36 per cent of the total market. The global passenger traffic data for June showing that demand (measured in revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) rose by 5.2% compared to the year-ago period. This was up slightly from the 4.8% increase recorded in May (revised). However, the upward trend in seasonally-adjusted traffic has moderated since January. June capacity (available seat kilometers or ASKs) increased by 5.6%, and load factor slipped 0.3 percentage points to 80.7%. “The demand for travel continues to increase, but at a slower pace. The fragile and uncertain economic backdrop, political shocks and a wave of terrorist attacks are all contributing to a softer demand environment,” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

Jet Airways will fly the largest aircraft in its fleet, the Boeing 777-300 ER, on the Mumbai-Amsterdam route with effect from Oct 30, 2016 to meet the growing demand on this key sector. Jet Airways is the only airline flying daily non-stop flights between Mumbai and Amsterdam. The Jet Airways’ Boeing 777 service offers a three-class configuration, comprising of eight First Class suites, 30 Premiere seats that open out into lie-flat beds, and 308 ergonomically designed seats in Economy. Jet Airways had commenced daily flights from Mumbai to Amsterdam on Mar 27, 2016. The capacity increase is in response to growing demand, particularly from business and corporate travellers. From Amsterdam, Jet Airways offers connectivity to 30 destinations across Europe and 11 destinations in the United States and Canada through its codeshare partnership with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Delta Air Lines. Gaurang Shetty, Whole-time Director, Jet Airways, said, “Our daily non-stop service connecting India’s commercial capital Mumbai and the key European hub Amsterdam has received excellent response since its launch. By deploying the 777-300ER aircraft, Jet Airways will be able to cater to the growing demand on this important sector at a time when trade and investment between India and Europe and North America is witnessing a healthy growth. The state-of-the-art wide body aircraft enables us to deliver a superior in-flight experience to our guests, along with the introduction of our signature First Class suites on this route.”

Due to unavailability of runway at Dubai International Airport, all IndiGo flights operating to and fro India stand cancelled for August 4, 2016.  From August 05 till 0730 hours IST on August 07, 2016, limited flights will be allowed to operate from Dubai Airports. The airline has requested all IndiGo passengers to check their flight status via customer relations or Twitter/Facebook or its web site. Passengers have been notified via web chat, SMSes, and through other channels.

After resuming departure operations at 18.30 hours UAE local time (8PM IST), Dubai Airports commenced arrival operations at Dubai International Airport (DXB) under restricted capacity following an operational incident involving an Emirates flight EK521 from Trivandrum (India) on August 3. According to a Dubai Aiports spokesperson, DXB is operating with one runway, with arriving flights being given priority over departures. While all 282 passengers and 18 crew on board were brought to safety, one member of Dubai Airports’ firefighting team succumbed to injuries sustained whilst responding to the incident. Paul Griffiths, CEO, Dubai Airports, said, “I am deeply saddened to confirm that a member of Dubai Airports’ firefighting team succumbed to injuries sustained whilst responding to the accident of flight EK 521 earlier this afternoon [August 3]. We are doing all we can to support the family of this member of our team and others affected by the incident.” The Emirates Airline confirmed a network wide delay and cancellation of 21 flights from Dubai on August 3 to various destinations such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Medina, Doha, Geneva, Tehran, Muscat, Multan, Bahrain, Dammam, Basra, Karachi, Kuwait, Amman, Riyadh, and Hong Kong. Emirates flight EK521 travelling from Trivandrum International Airport in Thiruvananthapuram, India to Dubai on August 3 was involved in an operational incident upon landing at DXB. The Boeing 777 aircraft, departed at 10.19 AM from Trivandrum International Airport and was scheduled to land at 12.50 PM at DXB.

SriLankan Airlines has signed on board Bollywood actor Jacqueline Fernandez as their brand ambassador. The letter of agreement was signed between SriLankan Airlines Chairman Ajit Dias and Jacqueline Fernandez on July 30, 2016, at St. Regis Hotel, Mumbai. With this collaboration it made her, the face of SriLankan Airlines and the brand continues to strengthen its presence in India. Speaking on the occasion, Ajit Dias, Chairman, SriLankan Airlines, said “We are delighted to have Jacqueline Fernandez as the Brand Ambassador for SriLankan Airlines. Jacqueline’s strong connect, passion towards Sri Lanka and being an iconic profile in Sri Lanka aligns her naturally with the brand, just like our other two brand ambassadors, Mahila Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara.”

London to Delhi and London to Mumbai were among the top five most popular origins and destinations between Europe and APAC for Gulf carriers, according to the data analysed by Amadeus IT Group’s Travel Intelligence team. They came third and fourth, respectively. The report also said that Gulf carriers saw exponential growth of first and business class passenger volumes in 2015. Between 2014 and 2015, first class passenger volumes for Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways on the top 10 Origins & Destinations between Europe and Asia Pacific increased 67 per cent, whilst business class traffic increased by 47 per cent. This staggering growth in premium classes was complemented by healthy overall growth, with a seven per cent increase in passenger volumes across all cabin classes for these routes. Airports in the Middle East also noticed a shift in traveller habits: passenger traffic for flights between Europe and APAC going through Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai increased by eight per cent. This data takes into account all bookings in the Amadeus system made via traditional and online travel agencies from across the globe. The figures come on the heels of Emirates and Etihad Airways both renewing their distribution agreements to sell their full range of fares to travellers worldwide through travel agents using Amadeus. Qatar Airways has had such an agreement in place since 2014.