Kolkata (CCU) | Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport

[shree711]

Originally Posted by Indiadreams

For flying into Kolkata, one has to start from domestic terminal, in most cases. In terms of looks, Mumbai's T1B and T1C are better than BIAL and Delhi's T1D (after KF's downfall, most of the flights are operated from T1D, as Delhi's domestic market is dominated by Indigo , Spicejet and to an extent AI).

You always have international terminal in mind, which is crappy at thw moment. But given the masive construction, it is still better compared to the standards of AAI in Kolkata/Chennai airports.

Your quite right there. Domestic is a lot better.

[barnomoy]

Originally Posted by Indiadreams

For flying into Kolkata, one has to start from domestic terminal, in most cases. In terms of looks, Mumbai's T1B and T1C are better than BIAL and Delhi's T1D (after KF's downfall, most of the flights are operated from T1D, as Delhi's domestic market is dominated by Indigo , Spicejet and to an extent AI).

You always have international terminal in mind, which is crappy at thw moment. But given the masive construction, it is still better compared to the standards of AAI in Kolkata/Chennai airports.

I think this is utter ignorance regarding Delhi Airport. The low cost carriers fly from T1D, that is Spicejet, Indigo and GoAir. I dont know wherefrom this idea has arised that T1D is the domestic terminal at IGIA! It is just the low cost terminal. Kingfisher, Air India, Jet (including JetConnect and JetLite), MDLR, Paramount Airways etc all operate domestic flights from the new T3 terminal. In fact it is an integrated terminal for both domestic and international flights.

Moreover T1D is also a stop gap measure. Even the low cost airlines are going to shift to T3 sometime soon.

An to compare T3 with Mumbai and even then say the latter is better, is simple foolishness. One needs to see T3 to believe it. I would say it is one of the best Terminals in the world today.

Hopefully NSCBIA's new terminall will have the class and finesse, alebit not the capacity a-la IGI T3...

[Wanderlust79]

http://www.business-standard.com/ind...d-2012/471133/

Indonesian national airline Garuda plans to start direct flight between Jakarta to Mumbai and Chennai by middle of this year, thus reviving its India service after more than a decade, according to Lt. General (retired) Andi M Ghalib, the Southeast Asian nationa’s ambassador to India.

Currently, passengers to Indonesia have to fly via Singapore or Malaysia. The proposed service would strengthen trade and tourism ties between the two countries, Ghalib said. “Later on, Garuda will also start direct flights from Delhi and Kolkata,” he told Business Standard.

Ghalib was in the city to meet the chief ministers of Punjab and Haryana, besides businessmen from the two states. Garuda used to operate a Mumbai-Jakarta service till the late 1990s, when economic crisis forced the airline to cut its India service.

Elaborating on the future moves, Indonesian consul Leonard F Hutabarat said his country had two years ago received India’s approval to start the service. “The Indian aviation ministry had cleared it in 2010, but we couldn’t start operations due to non-availability of aircraft,” he recalled. “Now, we have received new aircraft. We are likely to deploy Airbus-320 for the direct flights.”

The commencement of new flights, Hutabarat hoped, would lead to a “significant surge” in the travel of tourists and business people of the two countries. This will “also increase” the tourist inflow from India, which was just over 100,000 last year.

[Wanderlust79]

http://www.ausbt.com.au/virgin-austr...lkair-to-india

Virgin Australia is looking to make the most of its alliance with Singapore Airlines by introducing codeshare flights to India with SQ's regional offshoot SilkAir.

A Virgin Australia spokesperson confirmed to Australian Business Traveller that seven SilkAir services between Singapore and India have been earmarked for Virgin Australia codesharing, as listed in the global distribution system (GDS) used by travel agents and reported by Airline Route.

The Indian destinations are Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata and Thiruvananthapuram.

[HKGfan]

Originally Posted by Wanderlust79

http://www.ausbt.com.au/virgin-austr...lkair-to-india

Virgin Australia is looking to make the most of its alliance with Singapore Airlines by introducing codeshare flights to India with SQ's regional offshoot SilkAir.

A Virgin Australia spokesperson confirmed to Australian Business Traveller that seven SilkAir services between Singapore and India have been earmarked for Virgin Australia codesharing, as listed in the global distribution system (GDS) used by travel agents and reported by Airline Route.

The Indian destinations are Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata and Thiruvananthapuram.

That's just a codeshare on an existing flight. No new flights.

[abhipinak]

Virgin Australia always used the code sharing with Singapore airlines.. so this is just an additional news...

[abhipinak]

- Mega Cabs entry coincides with Kolkata Cabs exit from city

One step forward, one step back — that seems to be the not-so-cool equation between Calcutta and cool cabs this hot, hot April.

If all goes well, you might soon be able to get off the plane and slip into an air-conditioned radio taxi, that too without the hassle of booking one in advance. The bad news is, Calcutta lost one of its two radio taxi fleets — Kolkata Cabs — a fortnight ago.

On Thursday, the Airports Authority of India informed Mega Cabs that it would be allowed to start operating at the city airport “30 days from today”.

“After pursuing the matter for years, we have got permission to operate for a monthly fee of Rs 3 lakh. The number of counters hasn’t been fixed yet, but we plan to ask for at least two,” said Binod Mishra, vice-president of Mega Cabs.

Kolkata Call Taxi Private Ltd, which runs Mega Cabs, had first written to the AAI in January 2010 for counters and followed it up with repeat letters at regular intervals, highlighted by Metro on November 17, 2010. But the Left Front-run transport department refused to end the monopoly of the prepaid taxi service run by the Bengal Taxi Association (BTA), citing a 1993 order.

Now that Mega Cabs has managed to steer its way in, the association has said it is okay with some competition. “Radio cabs may operate from the airport. We don’t have anything to say about that,” said BTA president Bimal Guha.

Permission in hand, Mega Cabs is set to increase its city fleet from 200 to 500. It will be hiring heavily as well. “We will be allotted space to park 25 cabs near the airport,” vice-president Mishra said.

While Mega Cabs is expanding, Kolkata Cabs quietly signed off on April 1, almost four years after starting operations in the city. The Mumbai headquarters of Orix, which ran Kolkata Cabs, declined to comment on the pullout.

“I don’t know the exact reasons, but I can tell you that Orix was finding it difficult to run its fleet here because of low returns,” said an employee, on condition of anonymity.

The official said that while bookings were “decent” for weekends or occasions like Durga Puja or New Year’s Eve, demand was overall “poor”.

“Also, it’s difficult to run radio taxis in Calcutta because of low pricing,” a source said.

Mishra of Mega Cabs admitted that margins were under pressure because of pricing. “In any other city, the fare is Rs 20 per km, be it Delhi or Ludhiana. But in Calcutta, we have to ply our cabs at Rs 15 per km,” he rued.

So why expand operations in the city? “It’s only with an eye on the future that we are scaling up operations there,” he said. “The price per kilometre really needs to be raised.”

But with the Mamata Banerjee government baulking at the suggestion of any hike in the price of public transport, a fare raise is unlikely in the near future, sources said.

Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/112041...p#.T4eN8VFDvcE

[Rajarshi77]

Latest pics as on 12.04.2012

[Rajarshi77]

Entry ramp from outside

[NiladriG]

Cool updates Rajarshi, the glass cladding on the airside and aerobridge framework is done. Next would be to install the aerobridges as quickly as possible. Based on pics posted by Sun few days back, most of the glass cladding in front of terminal and drop-off area for the passengers are also complete. Can't wait for this mammoth beauty to be operational.

[shree711]

Originally Posted by barnomoy

I think this is utter ignorance regarding Delhi Airport. The low cost carriers fly from T1D, that is Spicejet, Indigo and GoAir. I dont know wherefrom this idea has arised that T1D is the domestic terminal at IGIA! It is just the low cost terminal. Kingfisher, Air India, Jet (including JetConnect and JetLite), MDLR, Paramount Airways etc all operate domestic flights from the new T3 terminal. In fact it is an integrated terminal for both domestic and international flights.

Moreover T1D is also a stop gap measure. Even the low cost airlines are going to shift to T3 sometime soon.

An to compare T3 with Mumbai and even then say the latter is better, is simple foolishness. One needs to see T3 to believe it. I would say it is one of the best Terminals in the world today.

Hopefully NSCBIA's new terminall will have the class and finesse, alebit not the capacity a-la IGI T3...

T3 one of the best terminals? I would only call it world class.

[Suncity]

Nice updates Rajarshi77.

[NiladriG]

We need a lot more mega cabs not only in airport but in the city also.


Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/112041...p#.T4eN8VFDvcE[/QUOTE]

[mooktada]

Originally Posted by shree711

T3 one of the best terminals? I would only call it world class.

yeah.. it's nowhere near the best in the world. I don't know where people are getting this second best, best airport. It is among the world class terminals out there, but no way it can can take on Incheon, SIN, BKK, PEK and quite a few others

[Indiadreams]

Originally Posted by barnomoy

I think this is utter ignorance regarding Delhi Airport. The low cost carriers fly from T1D, that is Spicejet, Indigo and GoAir. I dont know wherefrom this idea has arised that T1D is the domestic terminal at IGIA! It is just the low cost terminal. Kingfisher, Air India, Jet (including JetConnect and JetLite), MDLR, Paramount Airways etc all operate domestic flights from the new T3 terminal. In fact it is an integrated terminal for both domestic and international flights.

Moreover T1D is also a stop gap measure. Even the low cost airlines are going to shift to T3 sometime soon.

An to compare T3 with Mumbai and even then say the latter is better, is simple foolishness. One needs to see T3 to believe it. I would say it is one of the best Terminals in the world today.

Hopefully NSCBIA's new terminall will have the class and finesse, alebit not the capacity a-la IGI T3...

No need to get emotional dude. You read my full post. I didnt compare T3.

Jet has relatively smaller market share in Delhi now (I think there was route reallignment after KF's downsizing). I don't need to talk about KF now. If you count the domestic travellers in recent months, T1D will have almost double the number of domestic passengers in T3.

Check out summer schedule in DGCA's website (or the websites of airlines) if you are not convinced. Indigo and Spicejet (both Delhi based airlines) dominate Delhi market with higher number of flights, especially in metro routes from Delhi. Jet /Jet lite /Konnect has relatively lower number of services out of which a lot are ATR services.

[barnomoy]

Originally Posted by Indiadreams

No need to get emotional dude. You read my full post. I didnt compare T3.

Jet has relatively smaller market share in Delhi now (I think there was route reallignment after KF's downsizing). I don't need to talk about KF now. If you count the domestic travellers in recent months, T1D will have almost double the number of domestic passengers in T3.

Check out summer schedule in DGCA's website (or the websites of airlines) if you are not convinced. Indigo and Spicejet (both Delhi based airlines) dominate Delhi market with higher number of flights, especially in metro routes from Delhi. Jet /Jet lite /Konnect has relatively lower number of services out of which a lot are ATR services.

Absolutely agree with you on the flights part. In fact this is a phenomenon which is replicated almost all over India. IndiGo is on its way to becoming the largest domestic airline, and all low cost airlines consist of a huge chunk of the domestic aviation pie today.

However, this discussion was regarding the Terminals, and not which flights operate out of it. In this regard, I still consider IGI T3 to be the best Terminal in India currently and amongst the best in the world. True that it isint the best terminal in the world, but then there are many many contenders for the slot. IGIA was the world's first LEED certified airport and has been consistently ranking in the top charts in the 20-40 mn category. I have personally visited many International Airports abroad and can vouch that IGIA T3 has what it takes. Of course, ICH, SIN, PEK etc may be better, but all I was saying was the comparison with BOM.

Cheers!

[shuvro]

Originally Posted by mooktada

yeah.. it's nowhere near the best in the world. I don't know where people are getting this second best, best airport. It is among the world class terminals out there, but no way it can can take on Incheon, SIN, BKK, PEK and quite a few others

T3 is the best terminal in India, it is world class, but, difficult to call it amongst the best in the world. The design is good, it is classy, but, the services remain poor - particularly when the flagship career is Air India !!!! Missing luggage, missing connections etc may have more to do with an airline rather than the airport, but, as far as overall impression is concerned - it is still not quite there.

CCU, at least architecture wise (and excluding the city side and exterior connections), looks very good - may even be comparable to T3.

[NiladriG]

Architecture and design of the new terminal is truly world class, but one thing which I didn't understood is why there are so few aerobridges. If DEL can have 78 aerobridges, we should have had at least 30. They could have narrow extensions from the terminal which could have hosted more aerobridges.

[Kunal Gupta]

New terminal coming up is fine - but what happens to traffic?

With Lufthansa, AI Express, GMG getting out and Thai getting into A320 as Thai smiles in few months time what happens to this fantastic new terminal?

Jet may increase international operations from the city - plans of A330 to BKK postponed, not sure if they plan to use CCU as a hub for originating traffic from Bangladesh else stand alone flights to middle East or FAr east looks unlikely. Indigo's KTM & BKK are also postponed indefinitely.

No news of any other new airlines checking in is also not doing the rounds.

Will CCU be just a Domestic airport?

[himmat113]

Originally Posted by NiladriG

Architecture and design of the new terminal is truly world class, but one thing which I didn't understood is why there are so few aerobridges. If DEL can have 78 aerobridges, we should have had at least 30. They could have narrow extensions from the terminal which could have hosted more aerobridges.

Look at the brighter side. CCU will have more jetways than HYD and BLR(Even after the expansion of the terminal)