✈India Aviation | Airlines | Airports News II

[bangalore]

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[praveen]

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[praveen]

Originally Posted by ramkan

I have noticed that most of the indian airports have(or plan) very few baggage claim (converyor belts) points. Indians are known for heavy luggage carriers on international flights. Then why do these airports plan so few baggage claim points? Any thoughts?

The number of processors- be it baggage belt or the number of counter are typically derived from the flight schedule and more importantly the airport peaks. A hell of a lot of calculations go into it and its often quite funny how all those efforts are just to decided whether it has to be 6 or 8. Projecting a flight schedule to 2020 or 2030 is a tough task though and a lot of factoring goes into it from politics to changes that may happen to the aviation industry. It’s typically easy for airports that are the base for major airlines like Emirates for Dubai, Etihad for Abu Dhabi or Qatar Airways for Qatar. But it surely must be a tough task for Indian airports where the players are not really very clear. Besides you need a lot of data to be provided to the designers by the airport authorities and that’s where my concern has always been. Are the new generations of airports being designed to some projected values or are we simply getting pretty structures in glass and steel from foreign consultants.

I guess you’ll agree with me when I say most of the plans that we see are so rigid that expansion like adding another baggage belt or another bank of 30 check-in counters are simply impossible.

[bobbie501]

Sri Lankan Airlines to increase operations to India

NEW DELHI: Sri Lanka's national carrier Sri Lankan Airlines on Tuesday said it is planning to increase its operations to and from India by adding 50 new flights to its already existing 100 weekly flights over the next five years.


Apart from connecting 11 Indian cities with Sri Lanka, the airline is also planning to start direct operations from India to parts of Europe and middle-east.

"The airlines wants to connect south Indian cities to Europe, Middle east and Far east. We also have the option of explore 15 tier II Indian cities like Varanasi, Bhubaneshwar, Port Blair, Guwahati, Jaipur and others," SriLankan Airlines, Head of Worldwide Passenger Sales Manoj Gunawardena said.

[bobbie501]

Bill to regulate major airports

NEW DELHI: The government has proposed to set up an independent Regulatory Authority - Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) - with an aim to create a level playing field and healthy competition amongst all major airports, Rajya Sabha was told on Tuesday.

This was stated by the Minister of State for Civil Aviation Praful Patel in a written reply.

For this, AERA Bill 2007 has since been introduced in Lok Sabha on September 5 this year.

Tourists: In order to attract foreign tourists, National Aviation Company of India Limited has launched special holiday packages known as AirIndia Flyaways. These packages are saleable in domestic as well as international markets, he said.

A-380: It is planned the new Hyderabad international airport at Shamshabad will be A-380 compatible. While there are plans to upgrade Chennai and Kolkata airports, Delhi and Mumbai airports are being upgraded by joint venture companies for A-380 compatibility, Patel said.

Foreigners: Security clearance of foreign crew and engineers is necessary before they can be allowed to operate and maintain Indian registered aircraft. Further director and chairman or CEO of the organisation seeking no objection certificate are also required to be security cleared, he said.

Levy: International flights are levied 33 per cent more than domestic flights for landing and terminal navigation landing charges (TNLC) at international airports. At domestic airports also landing and TNLC are higher for international flights, he said.

[bobbie501]

Flemingo Duty Free upgrading stores and distribution in India

Flemingo Duty Free – Dubai’s only privately-owned duty free company - in many ways is an underestimated group, and one that was not taken seriously by many suppliers, even after it had broken into the Indian duty free monopoly with its first stores in Indian airports in 2003.

New operations will open at Kolkata International Airport by November and together with the company’s other recent new contract, Calicut (Kozhikode) in Kerala, this adds to the list of airports where Flemingo is the exclusive operator, the others being Chennai, Calcutta and Trivandrum airports.

With this five-year concession for Kolkata (Calcutta), Flemingo now operates in 14 airports in India and it has the largest share of the US$150 million duty free market. Flemingo is also operating in four of the top five airports in India.

Some 167square metres of space will be available in Kolkata, where duty free was historically run by the India Tourism Development Corporation. Flemingo is installing all the core categories there, such as liquor, tobacco, perfume and confectionery. In addition, jewellery, consumer technology and gift items will also be available.

Seaport shops also add to the company’s critical mass in India, and the last one added to the list was Paradeep Port, joining maritime shops in Chennai, Goa, Mumbai, Vizag, Kendala and other ports.

The reports said that following an examination by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board such outlets may be permitted, subject to permission from the Department of Commerce. In addition to the Special Economic Zones of Chennai, Salt Lake, Mangalore, Navi Mumbai, Kandla, Nanguneri, Visakhapatnam, Indore, Paradeep and Jodhpur, Flemingo has sought permission to open duty free land border outlets at the Wagah border with Pakistan, besides an additional outlet at Mumbai International Airport.

[Suncity]

Kingfisher Airlines Expands Route Network with the Introduction of Services on 7 New Routes

http://www.ndtvprofit.com/homepage%5...or.asp?id=5338

Kingfisher Airlines today announced that it will be launching services on seven new sectors and that it will add five new cities to the network of destinations served by it. A total of sixteen new flights will be added to the daily departures of Kingfisher Airlines.

The newly introduced services include flights on virgin routes which were not being served by any airline so far. The virgin routes launched by Kingfisher Airlines are Aurangabad- Udaipur, Jodhpur-Jaisalmer and Agra-Jaipur. The other new services launched by Kingfisher Airlines include a service from Jaipur to Udaipur, Udaipur to Jodhpur, Jodhpur to Jaisalmer, Agra to Jaipur, Jaipur to Jodhpur, Jaipur to Agra, Agra to New Delhi and New Delhi to Jaipur.

The five new cities that Kingfisher Airlines will add to its route network are Aurangabad, Agra, Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer. These flights will be operated using brand new ATR72-500 aircraft with Kingfisher Class featuring personalized in-flight entertainment on every seat, gourmet cuisine and world class service. With the launch of these new services, Kingfisher Airlines will have 238 departures a day and will serve 42 destinations with a fleet of 37 brand new aircraft.

Commenting on the launch of yet another series of new sectors, Mr. V. Raja, Global Sales Head, Kingfisher Airlines Limited said, “Our flights on the Udaipur-Aurangabad route will ensure that the affluent segment of tourists from Rajasthan will now be able to travel to Aurangabad and visit places of historic importance there too. There is huge potential to tap the pilgrimage market especially for pilgrims visiting the Srinath Temple and Salasar and the Aurangabad-Udaipur flights which will link Rajasthan with Maharashtra will cater to this segment. Besides this market, services on this sector will also cater to the burgeoning community of traders and high net worth individuals who have been instrumental in bolstering trade and commerce in these regions especially since the Aurangabad flight will cater to outlying markets like Jalna, Jalgaon and Nanded in the Marathwada region”.

Sharing the motivation behind the launch of the flights to Udaipur, Jodhpur Jaisalmer, Agra and Jaipur, Mr. Raja added, “The new flights to be introduced by Kingfisher Airlines in this region are targeted squarely at discerning travelers on the popular tourist circuits and will also cater to traffic in important centres of trade and commerce. The Agra-Jaipur service is a virgin route hitherto un-served by air connectivity. Likewise, the flights that will operate on the Jodhpur-Jaipur sector will make Kingfisher Airlines the only airline to offer daily services on this route. Our New Delhi-Agra flight will offer very convenient same day return timings for New Delhi based guests. We will also add one more flight on the New Delhi-Jaipur route which means Kingfisher Airlines will have a double-daily flight on this route.”

slightly older news

Kingfisher Airlines adds 4 new routes to network

http://www.domain-b.com/companies/co...7_network.html

Kingfisher Airlines has announced a further expansion of its route network, with the introduction of three new services and the addition of two new destinations.
The latest services connect New Delhi and Jammu with a daily direct flight in either direction.

The second new service is a daily direct flight from New Delhi to Lucknow.

Kingfisher Airlines also announced the introduction of a new daily service from Varanasi to Khajuraho, which doubles up as a new service connecting New Delhi with Khajuraho with a halt at Varanasi.

[Euromast]

//

NEW DELHI: With Airports Authority of India planning to hike its expenditure on modernising airports by a whopping 250 per cent in the 11th Plan, a parliamentary committee has asked it to ensure that there is no cost and time overrun in implementation of the projects.

The AAI has informed the Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU) that it proposed to spend over Rs 12,417 crore in the 11th Plan compared with Rs 3,535 crore in the 10th Plan, an increase of almost 250 per cent.

Noting that AAI had set up a project management cell to assess the progress of its projects, the COPU, headed by CPI(M) leader Rupchand Pal, recommended that this cell should "periodically assess the work of the ongoing projects so as to ensure that there is no cost and time overrun" in their implementation.

Regretting that AAI had taken "more than a decade" to prepare and finalise its corporate plan, it said the profit- making public sector unit had to "resort to segmented approach to the issues arising from time to time rather than having a holistic approach."

Observing that only 12 out of 90 operational airports were profit-making, the COPU emphasised that adequate steps be taken to augment the share of non-traffic revenue of airports to strengthen the existing infrastructure.

[Suncity]

SriLankan Airlines sets a new record

Statesman News Service

SriLankan Airlines has become the first foreign airline to operate 100 flights per week to India. The airlines reached the important milestone today when it added another weekly flight to its existing services to Trichy.

SriLankan Airlines CEO, Mr Peter Hill, said, Coimbatore became SriLankan’s 11th destination in India. The airlines operates two flights daily to Chennai and Mumbai, and a daily flight to New Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Trichy, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode. There are four flights to Coimbatore and three to Goa.

“We have recognised the importance of India and we have been steadily increasing the number of flights and the cities we serve,” he said. As regards company's future plans, he said, “We have plans to operate our flights to another 15 cities, including Kolkata in the next few years.” Mr Hill added, “We hope to increase weekly flights from the present 100 to 150 in the next two to three years.”

Mr Manoj Gunawardena, head of worldwide passenger sales, said, the airline offers Indian travellers rapid connections via Colombo to 54 destinations in 28 countries throughout the world.

[Suncity]

Kolkata-Dhaka Jet Airways flight from Dec 16

TOI epaper

Jet Airways plans to launch a daily flight from Kolkata to Dhaka in mid-December. At present, Biman Bangladesh and GMG Airlines operate 14 flights a week to Dhaka. Air India operates another five. AI’s low-cost airline AI Express is expected to start flying nine times-a week to the city. Once Jet Airways starts operations, it will take the total number of flights on the sector to 49 per week.

However, with bus and private taxi service between the two cities emerging as a popular option among travellers many in the airline industry feel carriers will feel the crunch.

[p2p4]

Starting November 07, AI will be serving Mumbai - HK - Mumbai route with 2 direct flights a week. This will greatly help serve the holiday crowds plus the fair & expositions crowd, who otherwise had to rely on AI's via Bangkok or via Delhi flights. The re-introduction of AI's direct flights (to Mumbai ) are a great relief for pax from East Asia region.

p2p4

[Suncity]

Originally Posted by p2p4

Starting November 07, AI will be serving Mumbai - HK - Mumbai route with 2 direct flights a week. This will greatly help serve the holiday crowds plus the fair & expositions crowd, who otherwise had to rely on AI's via Bangkok or via Delhi flights. The re-introduction of AI's direct flights (to Mumbai ) are a great relief for pax from East Asia region.

p2p4

Why not daily nonstops between BOM and HKG? Lack of aircraft?

[bobbie501]

ANA planning to start daily flights to Chennai or Kolkata by 2009-10

Will deploy B787 and introduce first class seats on Mumbai-Tokyo route


Tokyo-based All Nippon Airways (ANA) is currently evaluating the route viability to start daily operations from either Chennai or Kolkata. The airline already has the traffic rights to start daily operations from one more city in India and is likely to commence operations by 2009-10. ANA will deploy the B737 currently operated on Mumbai-Tokyo route with a configuration of all Business class seats (36) for flights to Chennai or Kolkata. The airline will deploy B787 Dreamliner on the Mumbai-Tokyo route. The airline operates six flights a week on the route.

"Once B787 is inducted on the Mumbai route, the airline will introduce two class configurations - First and Business class," says Kenji Sugino, Director, Administration, Marketing and Sales, ANA. The airline will have a configuration of eight First class seats and 80 Business class seats for the Mumbai route. Currently the airline registers a load factor of 70 per cent with around 80 per cent of the traffic coming in from Mumbai, Pune and Goa with the rest from Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi. Business traffic between India and Japan is increasing by 10 per cent on a yearly basis and the airline is looking at increasing traffic on the Mumbai-Tokyo route by 40 per cent by 2009-10. "In future, we are also intending to launch our website, although we don't know when this development will materialise," informed Sugino.

[cbeboy]

Singapore Airlines to add more flights


Singapore Airlines plans to add nine more weekly flights to India by the end of 2008. Talks in this regard are under way between the governments of Singapore and India.

While Singapore Airlines currently operates 55 flights a week to India, its sister airline, Silk Air, operates another 15 flights a week. The two airlines together operate 70 flights a week to 11 destinations in India.

Addressing a news conference here today, Mr Subhas Menon, Singapore Airlines’ Regional Vice-President (West Asia & Africa), said the airline wanted to augment services to and from cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

He said the average passenger load factor on the Singapore-India-Singapore sector was around 80 per cent. As such, it was necessary to not only augment the number of flights to India but also consider the option of operating bigger aircraft to destinations such as Mumbai, which currently has two flights daily to and from Singapore.

[cbeboy]

Entrepreneurs take to the sky with regional airlines


A booming economy, and the profits thereof, is letting a host of entrepreneurs take their goals sky-high, literally. An increasing number of businessmen are entering the aviation business.

Sample this. Kochi-based Emric Aviation is a proposed regional carrier promoted by Martin Sebastian, a Kerala-based real estate and infrastructure developer who has diversified into the hospitality and SEZ development businesses, and digital film production. Says chief executive Muhaimin Saidu, “All one needs to start a regional carrier is good entrepreneurial skills and capital investment. While I have worked as an aircraft engineer, we are a team of people from different backgrounds.”

The company is targeting cities like Madurai, Trichy, Coimbatore and Mysore, and is in negotiations with Bombardier and Embraer for its aircraft fleet. “Cochin had 25% passenger growth year on year and this will be the first Cochin-based airline. We are targeting cities such as Madurai, Trichy and Mysore, which are commercial hubs.”

According to industry estimates, the domestic passenger traffic in India recorded a 45% growth during April-September 2006, over the previous year. It’s also estimated that almost 2,000 passenger aircraft will be required in 10 years time. According to Kapil Kaul, CEO, Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) in New Delhi, “The Indian aviation market has been heavily dependant on Tier-I players so far. However, to grow the business, regional players need to be allowed to come up in a big way.”

Emric Air is joined by others like travel firms Air Dravida in Chennai and the Bird Group in Delhi, Indus Air by breweries company Mohan Meakin in the North, Gurgaon-based MDLR Airlines, Star Aviation and Trans India Aviation, who are all set to enter this emerging segment.

So what makes this such an attractive proposition? The opportunity that’s opening up in regional routes, connecting the Tier-II cities, is fuelled by a variety of factors. “Regional services have a lot of potential in South India as the economy of South Indian cities is booming,” says Air Dravida’s CEO, Ramachandran Iyer.

The airline is part of Premier Tours and Travel, a ticketing and travel agency company in Chennai, and plans an initial investment of Rs 40 crore in the new business. Air Dravida is eyeing passengers who fly international routes from smaller towns via the metros — say from Trichy or Coimbatore to Chennai onwards to Singapore.

Up North, for the Bird Group — with a background in the travel and hospitality businesses — launching an airline is a natural step forward. The group, which has a joint venture with Amadeus, a GDS player for air ticket reservation and Thai-based Dusit Thani Group of Hotels, does ground handling, airport check-ins and also runs a training academy for the travel industry.

Says executive director Ankur Bhatia, of the yet unnamed airline, “We already have a licence to operate as a non-scheduled operator. We should be able to get that converted into a regional airline licence hopefully by mid next year.”

The company is looking at 30- and 70-seater Turbo Prop aircraft for operating in the north Indian market.
While the opportunity is big, regional carriers will have to contend with the challenges of funding, airport infrastructure and talent.

According to the DGCA’s policy on regional carriers, the paid capital for a carrier with three aircraft should be at least Rs 12 crore, which could be increased to a maximum of Rs 20 crore as the airline expands its fleet. However, CAPA’s Kaul says this wouldn’t be enough for a regional carrier to survive the eventual battle for the skies. “I believe airlines which can invest Rs 150-200 crore, are the ones which will survive. Also the economies of scales will work only if an airline has at least 15 aircraft,” he explains.

[p2p4]

Originally Posted by Suncity

Why not daily nonstops between BOM and HKG? Lack of aircraft?

HI Sun,

Two reasons for this - not enough load factor to justify daily flights. Besides, the aircraft they use for the HKG-BOM-HKG sector is a wet-lease airbus from Czech Airways (about which I posted a long post 4 months back). Which means, they do not have enough aircrafts to spare for their East Asian network. It is true that AI has ordered 60+ brand new aircrafts but deliveries are going to be a trickle till say, perhaps, 2010 - 2012.

On the other hand, looking at AI's policy of putting wet-lease a/c or OLD a/c on East Asian networks suggests that they do not put much onus on serving their E.A passengers to a prime service. Reading of AI's forays on western hemisphere services, the Eastern hemisphere services pale in comparison.

Anyways, hoping for the better

Cheers
P2P4

[Suncity]

Originally Posted by p2p4

HI Sun,

Reading of AI's forays on western hemisphere services, the Eastern hemisphere services pale in comparison.

Anyways, hoping for the better

Cheers
P2P4

Maybe Deccan-Kingfisher and Jet will pay attention to this route in the future.

[Suncity]

Strange. Maybe they should be flying to the US instead?

Jet to suspend flights from Ahmedabad to London

http://www.livemint.com/2007/11/2923...s-from-Ah.html

Facing poor passenger response, Jet Airways is planning to suspend international flights to London’s Heathrow airport from Ahmedabad after mid-January.

Jet is operating three flights a week from Ahmedabad. The airlines opened this route in March, targeting the Gujarati and non-resident Indian community staying in the UK.

“We will withdraw Ahmedabad-London flights from 15 January and will deploy this capacity into Amritsar-London route,” said Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, chief executive officer of Jet. “The passenger load factor of Amritsar is comparatively better than Ahmedabad,” he added. Prock-Schauer said the airline will route passengers for the UK from Ahmedabad through Mumbai as it is the closest airport for them.

However, state-run carrier Air India will continue its daily flights from Ahmedabad to London, according to an official, who didn’t want to be named, claiming “the carrier is having very good passenger load factor.”

[Suncity]

Kingfisher to fly abroad on Deccan's ticket

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...ow/2579829.cms

Vijay Mallya, the new leader in domestic skies, will fly international routes under Kingfisher and Deccan brands from the next calendar year.

Putting to rest speculation whether he will be able operate Kingfisher brand internationally, UB Group chairman Mallya said: “There has been confusion around this, and I would like to clarify that Deccan Aviation will also do businesses as Kingfisher Airlines by 2008. The government rules says the operator or the company has to complete five years, but it does not talk about logo, or aircraft livery or brand.”

In fact, Kingfisher is finalising parking bays and time slots for itself at New York and San Francisco airports. The airline is also booking space for operating exclusive lounges in these international hubs.

It is believed that UB will operate its long haul international flights to the US and UK under Kingfisher while low-cost destinations to the Middle East and South Asian markets are likely to be covered by Deccan. In fact, Kingfisher Airlines is in the process of firming up plans for launching non-stop flights to San Francisco, New York and London from Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi early next year. The airline also plans to connect Los Angeles and Canada as well.

Kingfisher Airlines is expected to see the arrival of the five A340 aircraft between March to August next year to kick-off international operations. The airline has also placed orders for five A330s and five A350s to support its overseas plans. Till date it is the first domestic carrier to place orders for five A380 aircraft.

Mr Mallya said Kingfisher-Deccan combine was reworking its capacity build up plans, as the domestic aviation sector was beefing up capacities ahead of industry growth figures. “We would rather focus on filling up existing capacities with higher yields,” he added.

[IndiansUnite]

Another new Air India Regional flight :

Delhi-Gwalior-Bhopal --> flying Mon-Tue-Thurs-Sat from Dec1




^This is in addition to the daily AI Delhi-Bhopal flight.