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AI pilots call
off agitation
New Delhi/Mumbai, September 30, 2009 (PTI): The crisis in Air
India ended today with pilots calling off their five-day old
agitation under Government threat to resume duty or face action
after it promised to put in abeyance the decision to cut their
incentives and allowances.
"The strike has been called off in view of the assurance
given by Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel that status quo will
continue on issues," Capt V K Bhalla, representative of the
protesting executive pilots, told reporters here.
"We are thankful and happy that the pilots have called
off their agitation, the Air India CMD (Arvind Jadhav) will be
shortly forming a committee," Patel told reporters soon after
the pilots' agitation was withdrawn.In Mumbai, AI's executive
director Jitendra Bhargava said normalcy would be restored by
tonight on international flights and by tomorrow morning in domestic
operations.
AI cancels 80 flights, agitation enters
4th day
New Delhi, September 29, 2009 (PTI: As the agitation by Air India's executive pilots entered
the fourth day, the airlines today cancelled around 80 morning flights,
including international ones, originating from here. Domestic flights to Kolkata, Lucknow, Srinagar,
Raipur, Nagpur, Chennai,
Mumbai and Ahmedabad, and six international ones to Dubai, Bangkok,
Kathmandu, Singapore and Kabul remained cancelled as the pilots of these airlines reported sick.
"As per the contingency plan, we have cancelled flights on those sectors which have low passenger load or on which there are alternative flights, either by us
or by other airlines," an Air India official said.
We informed the passengers about the cancellation of flights and also made
adequate arrangement of funds, so that their is no shortage of funds in case
they go for refund claims, the official added.
Jet
returns after pilots' strike ends
New Delhi, September 14 2009: Jet Airways, India's second-
largest domestic carrier, returned to the skies yesterday
after a week-long stand-off with pilots that had grounded its
flights and cost the company millions of dollars in lost revenues.
The majority of the airline's pilots had taken industrial action by
reporting sick after four of their colleagues were sacked for
setting up a trades union. An agreement struck at the weekend
reinstated the sacked pilots, agreed a resumption of flights and
paved the way for the possible recognition of a pilots' union. The
five-day strike has been costly to Jet, already reeling from a
difficult year. The strike led to the cancellation of about 1,000
flights and cost the airline $2.2m in lost revenues a day.
Source: The Financial Times
180 Jet Airways flights cancelled, pilots' strike on
Mumbai, September 12, 2009: Jet Airways cancelled 180 flights, including 25 international, on Saturday on
the fifth day of a strike by its pilots. According to an announcement early on Saturday, the airline would operate only
two flights on the international route. These include London-Mumbai and Abu
Dhabi-Delhi. The passengers were advised to contact at the airport for the Brussels-Delhi flight.The airline had cancelled nearly 240 services across the network on Friday as over 500 pilots reported 'sick' on Tuesday.
A marathon meeting between the Jet management and the striking pilots in New
Delhi on Friday remained inconclusive.The conciliation meeting was attended by Jet's executive director Saroj Dutta
and chief executive officer Hafiz Ali. The newly formed National Aviators Guild
(NAG) was represented by Captain Kaushik and Captain Sam Thomas, one of the four sacked pilots.A second round of talks shall be held in Mumbai on Saturday. The pilots have
demanded reinstatement of their four colleagues who were sacked and recognition
of their union NAG.
Jet airways cancels
173 flights as stir continues
New Delhi/Mumbai, Sept 11, 2009 (PTI): With the Jet pilots'
agitation continuing for the fourth consecutive day today, the
airline has cancelled 173 flights across the country including 15
from the national capital. The flights were cancelled despite the
airways management and its pilots last night hammering out a broad
understanding to break the deadlock over the pilots'
stir raising prospects of a quick return to normalcy.
The understanding came after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
inquired about the crisis at the Cabinet meeting which was given an
update by Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel. "Around 15
flights including four international flying from Delhi till
afternoon have been cancelled. In total we have cancelled 173
flights from across the country," a Jet Airways spokesperson
said.
Jet lag hits over 20,000 flyers
NEW DELHI, September, 9, 2009: Passengers scheduled to fly Jet Airways over the next
couple of days should brace for major disruptions . A standoff between the management and pilots over the formation of a union saw 361 pilots reporting sick en masse on Tuesday, leading to cancellation of over half the 380-odd flights that Jet operates daily, and stranding over
20,000 passengers.
The airline cancelled 191 flights on Tuesday and another 31 for Wednesday — mostly
domestic — and things could get worse for passengers if the warring sides don’t patch up fast. Fearing a prolonged agitation, the government is toying with the idea of invoking Essential
Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), with home secretary G K Pillai writing to state chief
secretaries to consider this move. The Bombay HC has also directed agitating pilots not to disrupt services.
Jet Airways pilots go on
mass sick leave
Mumbai/New Delhi, September 8, 2009 (IANS):
Some 400 pilots of Jet Airways proceeded on a mass 'sick leave'
Tuesday morning, resulting in cancellations of over 100 flights,
inconvenience to thousands of passengers and chaos at several
airports across the country. Flights out of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata,
Bangalore and Chennai bore the brunt of this mass leave, as per
reports from these centres. Several international flights also had
to be cancelled.
The airline operates 380 flights daily to 63 destinations in
India and overseas. 'The least the airline people could have done is
informed me that my flight was being cancelled,' complained V.S.
Sharma who was to fly to Mumbai from Delhi. 'I could have made
alternative arrangements. Really, this is very, very bizarre.' Jet
Airways said all affected guests can get a full refund or rebook
themselves on an alternate date without any cancellation or reissue
charges, but passengers were not amused. The pilots have been
demanding the reinstatement of two of their colleagues, who were
sacked recently. The airline has some 700 pilots on its rolls.
Jet Airways pilots
in city support strike call on September 7
CHENNAI, August 30, 2009: Jet Airways pilots based in the
city have expressed support for the strike call given by the
National Aviators Guild, a newly formed pilots' union of the
airline. More than 700 Indian pilots of the airline are scheduled to
strike work across India on September 7, demanding reinstatement of
two pilots who were terminated for registering a union in Mumbai.
D Balaraman, general secretary of the union said, "We had a
meeting here on Thursday to explain the reason for the strike and
its impact on pilots based in Chennai." All the 39 pilots
working at the Chennai base of the airline had agreed to take part
in the strike, he added.
Air India violates
safety norms, allows extra passengers on board
Delhi July 9 (ANI): In a clear violation of safety norms Air
India allowed three extras passengers on board a fully loaded
flight.Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) who was inquiring
into the collision of the aero bridge with Air India's IC 179 flight
at Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai, revealed this
fact. The Mangalore bound airbus A321 was damaged after colliding
with the aerobridge on May 5. The DGCA inquiry revealed that one-woman passenger was made
to sit in the cockpit's jump seat behind the pilot, and two children
were made to sit on a foldable seats meant for cabin crew near the
door.Air India, which is going through a financial crisis, has
entered into a new controversy. The DGCA can initiate criminal action against Air India
for violating safety norms. (ANI)
Airlines likely to bump up fares a bit on fuel hike
Bangalore, June 16, 2009 (DNA): Airlines are considering fuel surcharge hike after aviation turbine
fuel (ATF) scaled up 12%, or Rs 4,000 per kilolitre, on Monday. The latest hike by oil marketing companies comes after two price increases early
this month and a hike mid-last month. A senior executive of a leading budget airline said they cannot ignore the
latest increase in the ATF price. "There will be something (hike in fuel
charges) for sure because we have not reacted to the last two price revisions by
the oil marketing companies. If you look at the cumulative increase in ATF
prices in the last one month, it comes to around 20%," he said.
Full-service carrier Kingfisher Airlines also put out a statement saying it will
soon take a call on the price rise. "We are examining the impact of the latest
ATF prices and will take a view shortly," it said. However, any upward movement of the fuel surcharge would be lower than the
proportion of the ATF price hike. An airline source said that usually, a Rs 4,000 per kilolitre jump in jet fuel
prices would mean a Rs 300 hike on short haul routes -- less than 750 km -- and
Rs 600 on routes longer than 750 km. However, since airlines are grappling with low
demand for air travel, they would look at a much smaller hike, he said.
State-owned Air India has decided to wait and watch before taking a final call.
A Jet Airways spokesperson said the full-service airline has not taken any
decision on increasing the fuel surcharge. The state-owned oil marketing companies hiked ATF prices on Monday after
international crude oil prices firmed at a seven-month high of $72 per barrel on
hopes of demand revival in US. - DNA
Jet to retrench
excess staff, blames slowdown
NEW DELHI, may 15, 2009: Jet Airways on Friday said it would
retrench excess staff to tackle the financial crisis it faces
following the global slowdown, but stressed that reports of huge
layoffs were overstated. "Retrenchment is the last resort for
us. We have excess staff," a
Jet Airways spokesperson told reporters. "But reports appearing
in the media about huge layoffs are grossly overstated."
Justifying the decision, the carrier said the worldwide economic
slowdown has had an adverse impact on all businesses and the
aviation sector.
Domestic passengers
carried by Indian Airlines in April 2009
Ministry of Civil Aviation, May 13, 2009: The total domestic
passengers carried by the Scheduled Airlines of India in the month
of April 2009 was 33.15 lakhs. The total passengers carried by
domestic airlines in the month of March 2009 was 31.60 lakhs. The
break-up
for the month of April 2009 is as follows:
Air India (Domestic) – 5.83 lakhs, Jet Airways –5.52 lakhs, Jet
Lite – 2.44 lakhs, Kingfisher – 8.61 lakhs, Spice Jet – 3.87
lakhs, Paramount – 0.75 lakhs, Go Air – 1.45 lakhs, IndiGo –
4.54 lakhs.
The percentage share of the carriers in the month of April
2009 was:
Air India (Domestic) 17.6%, Jet Airways – 16.7%, Jet Lite –
7.4%, Kingfisher –26.0%, Spice Jet – 11.7%, Paramount – 2.3%,
Go Air – 4.4% and IndiGo – 13.7%.
The seat factors of the domestic airlines in the month of
April, 2009 was:
Air India (Domestic) – 59.9%, Jet Airways – 65.0%,
JetLite – 68.7%, Kingfisher Airlines – 64.2%, Spice Jet –
68.0%, Paramount Airways – 88.5%, Go Air – 72.0% and IndiGo –
72.1%.
Jet Airways to launch low-fare Jet Konnect
Delhi, May 7, 2009 (IANS): Leading private carrier Jet Airways will launch a new
economy service, 'Jet Airways Konnect', from Friday on select sectors, the
airline announced Thursday.
The company said in a regulatory statement that Jet Konnect would offer almost
all services of the parent carrier and would help the airline cater to the needs
of the consumers opting for low-fare services. 'The only difference will be that Jet Konnect travellers will have to buy their
meals on-board,' the company said. Both Jet Airways and its low-cost carrier
JetLite now offer food to their travellers on-board. The ground and in-flight services of Jet Konnect will be handled by the airline
employees, the statement said.
Paramount Airways to
fly to 35 more cities by 2010
Mumbai May 4, 2009: Paramount Airways, the Chennai-based
premium service carrier, is launching services to various other
destinations in the country. The fully business-class airline is to
commence services to 35 more cities, increasing its domestic routes
to 50 by the end of 2010. New planned destinations are Dehli, Imphal,
Bhubaneswar, Ranchi, Bhopal, Nagpur, Porbander and other places in
Gujarat. This is in addition to the earlier announced plans of
launching services to Kolkata, Guwahati and Agartala, connecting
these the south Indian cities of Chennai, Coimbatore and Kochi.
Paramount will also add another 10 aircraft to its existing
fleet of six planes, and is currently doing a technical evaluation
of aircraft. It is looking at acquiring either from Airbus Industrie
or Boeing, under a Rs 4,000-crore deal, on an operational lease.
Jet Airways plans 20% salary cut
MUMBAI, april 24, 2009: India’s second
largest private airline, Jet Airways, has proposed to slash salaries
across the board in the light of the economic downturn. The cut in
salaries is expected to be in the range of 10-20%, depending
on the grades of the employees. Jet’s staff strength across the
country is around 13,200.
A senior Jet Airways official said the carrier will do what
it can to stay in the business. The earlier round of a 25% cut in
the salaries of pilots and others in the top management did not work
too well, it is learnt. The airline this time is looking to cut
salaries across the board by as much as 20% though a final decision
on this is yet to be taken, added the official. The Economic Times
No immediate plan to hike fares: Air India
NEW DELHI, April 21, 2009:: India's
flagship carrier Air India on Monday said it has no
"immediate" plan to raise fares even as other airlines
Kingfisher and Jet Airways have hiked fares on account of rising
fuel costs. Ruling out any immediate fare hike, an Air India
spokesperson said: "We have been No 3 for quite sometime. We
are trying hard to improve our passenger strength." At present, the airline is offering special fares as low as
Rs 2,494 to 35 destinations across the country, he said, adding that
these offers would continue despite recent hikes in the aviation
fuel price.
Foreign
airlines offer special summer air fares
NEW DELHI, March 22, 2009: To counter recession and slow down
in tour and travel business many foreign airlines are coming up with
special fares ahead of summer World's busiest airports holidays.
People who were earlier postponing their trips because of the
higher airfares have made the most of the opportunity and booked
well in advance for their summer holidays since these are for a
limited period.
KLM is giving Delhi- London for Rs 9,900 excluding the taxes
while Emirates is give Mumbai-Dubai-London for Rs 19,880. Thai
Airways has come out with a fare of Rs 35,000 (inclusive of taxes)
on the Mumbai-Sydney sector. However , this is only for the day
flights out of Mumbai . Compared to this Qantas is offering a fare
of Rs 51,939 (inclusive of taxes),
this is from Mumbai to two cities in Australia. All these special
fare are valid till 31 March.
International airlines like Ethiad, British Airways, Cathay
Pacific are seen offering more competitive prices than before for
the various international destinations from India. Discounted
airfares are more for destinations like Dubai, Frankfurt, Abu Dhabi,
London, Bangkok, Hong Kong etc. Discounts that are being offered to
passengers flying currently are basically a result of the global
recession. Airlines have reduced prices as traveling has become
less, in order to meet expenses and get more loads on flights, the
airlines are coming up with special fares.
Source: The Economic Times
Jet Airways group remains India's largest airline
New Delhi, January 14, 2008 (IANS): Private carrier Jet
Airways, together with its low-cost airline JetLite, was India's
largest domestic air services operator in 2008, ferrying some 12.01
million passengers for a market share of 29.5 percent, latest data
showed on Tuesday. Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines, along with
its budget carrier Kingfisher Red, was next, flying 11.26 million
passengers to capture a 27.6 percent market share, as per data
released by the civil aviation ministry.
The state-run Air India's domestic operations, which earlier
operated under the Indian Airlines brand name, continued to lose
market share and flew just 6.63 million passengers for a market
share of 16.3 percent. It had a 19-percent market share in 2007. Air
India, which was formed after the merger of another state-run
carrier Indian Airlines - that now ceases as a brand name - said
they hope to regain a lot of their market share in the current year.
Interestingly, despite the proliferation of low-cost
carriers like SpiceJet, GoAir and IndiGo, the scheduled carriers
continued to dominate the market with a 54.7 percent share. Overall,
Indian domestic carriers ferried 40.7 million passengers in 2008, a
marginal drop of 5 percent over the previous year. Indian carriers
carried 42.8 million passengers in 2007.
Kingfisher to fly Dubai next month
New Delhi, JANUARY 07, 2009: Kingfisher
Airlines Ltd, will launch its first flight to West Asia connecting
Bangalore with Dubai next month. Kingfisher Airlines had launched
its international operations in September, connecting Bangalore with
a daily non-stop London flight, followed by a Mumbai-London flight
that started on Monday. By end of January, Hong Kong, Singapore and
Colombo will also become part of its network, the airline has said.
Jet Airways (India) Ltd, which launched West Asia operations
last year after the civil aviation ministry lifted a ban restricting
only Air India to fly the lucrative West Asian market, has already
announced a free ticket for its Dubai flights for every economy or
business class ticket bought from Tuesday.
Jet raises Rs 1,000 cr from Indian banks
MUMBAI, December 29, 2008: Jet Airways has raised about Rs 1,000 crore from a
South- Indian bank and a nationalised bank to meet its working capital requirements. Both the banks have issued letters of credit to the airline, said a source close to the development. Jet Airways has been in the midst of a cash crunch for a while now.
It is not known whether Jet Airways will pledge company shares or any kind of collateral for the transaction. Jet Airways owes Rs 1,057 crore to large oil firms—Indian Oil Corporation,
Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum. Jet Airways and Jetlite have defaulted on a
payment of Rs 32.78 crore to AAI.
Source: The Economic Times
Indian travel agents to boycott Singapore Airlines
MUMBAI, December 27, 2008: Indian travel agents associations and travel portals on Friday decided to completely boycott Singapore Airlines, after the foreign carrier declined to give any commission to the agents on the sale of tickets. The boycott will start from December 30, from 5 pm, said the Travel Agents' Association of India, which is the representative body of all travel agents.
The boycott of Singapore Airlines, the largest foreign carrier operating in India, would mean that travellers will find it difficult to book tickets on the carrier, as a major part of the ticket sales is done by agents and portals. Most airlines recently stopped paying the 5% commission from November, forcing agents to shift to a fixed transaction fee on every ticket purchased.
Source: The Economic Times
Jet fuel prices cut further by Rs 2,100 per kl
New Delhi, November 4, 2008 (PTI): State-run oil firms on Monday cut jet fuel prices further by Rs 2,100 per kilolitre on top of the 17 per cent reduction announced last week, after
government exempt the fuel from payment of customs duty. Government had on October 31 exempted jet fuel from 5 per cent import duty. Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum had from November 1 cut jet fuel or aviation turbine fuel (ATF) price in Delhi by Rs 9,429.87 per kl to Rs 47,017.93 per kl, in line with fall in international oil prices.
"On an average, ATF price for domestic airlines will be further reduced by Rs 2,100 per kl with effect from midnight tonight. For international airlines (which do not pay local sales tax or VAT),
the reduction would be $35 per kl," an industry official said. Though there are no imports of jet fuel and it is a freely priced petroleum product, the price of domestically produced fuel is based
on import parity price factoring in the basic customs duty.
Air India CMD censured by govt for leave-without-pay plan
New Delhi October 22, 2008: State-owned carrier Air India Head Raghu Menon was today
censured by the government for his proposal to offer leave without pay to 15,000 employees. "There should not be any layoffs. Why are you raising it now," sources quoted Deora as telling
Menon. The oil minister than widened his message on 'no-job' cuts to the other
participants - Kingfisher Chairman Vijay Mallya and Jet Airways Executive Director Saroj
Dutta - present at the meeting. Later talking to reporters, the civil aviation minister said the airlines should protect jobs. "We have spoken to the airlines, they will have to be sympathetic to employees. We have told them we will try and help them further."
Last week, Menon had announced that Air India was planning to offer three to five years leave without pay to 15,000 of its employees in an attempt to cut costs. The employees would have the option to return to service at the last drawn pay and seniority, if they so wished after the end of the period.
Jet Airways, which had sacked 1,900 employees, had to reinstate them after it came in for strong criticism, particularly from
Deora.
Jet retracts and reinstates sacked workers,
under attack
MUMBAI, October 17, 2008: Under severe attack for sacking its 1,900 employees a day after
the alliance with Kingfisher, leading private airline Jet Airways on Friday apologised to the terminated staffers and asked them to join duty from tomorrow.
“I apologise for what they have gone through...my decision is without external or internal pressure,” Jet chief Mr Naresh Goyal told reporters in an emotionally choked voice. He dismissed questions relating to political pressure, including a threat by Raj Thackeray that Jet would not be allowed to fly from Mumbai, Mr Goyal said that the decision was taken by the management due to economic conditions.
Dubbing the entire workforce as part of a family, he said, “How we continue to fly and not be grounded due to economic conditions we will work it out and see how to strengthen. “The decision is not any under pressure. My wife (Anita) is standing by it”. Repeatedly apologising for the decision, he appealed to the sacked employees saying “sab log wapas aayenge” (everybody will come back). The top two private airlines, Jet and Kingfisher, which account for about 60 per cent of domestic aviation traffic, had announced on Monday an alliance to share their resources and flying routes to beat the economic downturn. - PTI
India's Jet
Airways looking to return some leased aircraft
MUMBAI, October 16, 2008 (Reuters): Jet
Airways , India's top private domestic carrier, was considering
returning some of its leased aircraft due to a decline in demand and
and a halt on its expansion plans, a senior executive said on
Thursday.
Chief Commercial Officer Sudheer Raghavan said retrenchments
of 1,900 staff announced this week would be completed by the
end of next week. He said the employees had been hired for Jet's
expansion plans, including international routes. "We are
looking at the possibility of returning some aircraft,"
Raghavan told Reuters. In September, Jet budget arm JetLite offered
526 flights daily with a fleet of 109 aircraft. - Reuters India
1,900 staff of Jet and Kingfisher are being given notice of separation
MUMBAI, October 15, 2008: Jet Airways on Wednesday said that 1,900 of the 13,000 staff
were being given notices of seperation. Yesterday, Jet had announced that 850 cabin crew would be given the pink slip. Jet and Kingfisher, along with their acquired airlines, have a
combined strength of 19,000 employees, a fleet of 189 aircraft serving 1,009 daily flights, of which 82 are on international routes.
According to industry sources, this was the third time in recent months that Jet had cut its workforce. Some 1,200 employees were given the pink slip after the carrier acquired Air Sahara last year followed by a separation pact with another 700 a couple of months ago. Kingfisher, too, had initiated similar moves, albeit at a much truncated level.
The tremors brought about by the worst downturn yet in the airline industry were felt on Tuesday itself, hours before the first Jet Airways flight of the day took off. Said a crew member, “About three and a half hours before a flight, the office transport reaches your home to pick you up. In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, hundreds of cabin crew members in Mumbai who were rostered for early morning flights waited in their uniforms to be picked up.’’ When the worried flight attendants started calling up the airline dispatch office they were told they had been derostered till further notice. Vijay Mallya on Tuesday refused to answer questions on who-whether he or Jet owner Naresh Goyalhad initiated the dialogue leading to their ‘historic’ alliance. He did say Kingfisher would save nearly Rs 1,500 cr a year. : The Economic Times
Credit crunch: Airlines seek $1 bn bailout
BANGALORE, October 11, 2008: The Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) has asked for a $1 billion (about Rs 5,000 crore) interest free loan from the government to tide over the current crisis in addition to many other fiscal sops and easing of regulatory measures.
FIA, whose members include Air India, Go Airlines, IndigGo, Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines, Paramount Airways & Spicejet, wants a moratorium of three years on the repayment of loan.
A fiercely competitive market, slowing passenger traffic, rising costs and the current liquidity crunch has brought the industry to a stage where it feels that if a bailout package is not on the cards then it would need to substantially downsize. Simply put, many an airline will be grounded which doesn’t sound implausible considering that the $6-billion (Rs 30,000-crore )
industry is expecting losses to mount to $2-billion (Rs 10,000 crore) this year.
Source: The Economic Times
Air France reworks India strategy
Mumbai October 06, 2008: After nearly 60 years of operations in India, French flag carrier Air France is reworking its Indian strategy to optimise its share of the growing outbound passenger traffic. “Though the domestic passenger numbers are likely to see a dip of 15 per cent in the second quarter of this fiscal, the outbound market from India still has a modest double- digit
growth and the current number of outbound travellers of 30 million passengers will be 120 million by 2020. Therefore India is a significant market with Indian traveller recognised worldwide," said Kapil Kaul, CEO (Indian sub-continent and Middle East), Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation.
The airline has also plans to renegotiate its flying rights with the Indian government as it mulls deployment of the Airbus A380 — a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine plane — in the Indian skies.
Source: Business Standard
New air traffic system to help ease congestion
NEW DELHI, October 01, 2008: Domestic carriers such as Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher may now look forward to significant savings on account of faster clearances for landing and take-off . Their planes may not have to unnecessary hover at busy airports due to congestion as the government has expedited the process of putting in place a central flow management system (CFMS) by replacing the existing five flight information regions (FIRs).
The new system would provide advance information to the aircraft regarding the congestion at their destinations . This means that an aircraft would take off only when there is no congestion at their destination airport, thereby saving fuel. Most of the developed countries including the US and Canada have CFMS in their airspace.
As per an estimate, smaller aircraft such as ATR and CRJ burn fuel worth nearly Rs 1,500 per minute while bigger aircraft like A320 and B737 costs more than Rs 3,000 a minute. The new air traffic control system would cost the government Rs 60 crore, but the savings for airlines would be significant. Presently, there are four flight information regions (FIRs) — Delhi ,
Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai with Guwahati being the sub region of
Kolkata. If an aircraft takes off from Delhi airport (meaning Delhi FIR) for Mumbai, it has no advance information about the congestion and air traffic flow at Mumbai. Since, it has already taken off from Delhi and the aircraft has no choice but to hover over Mumbai if there is congestion at the airport. : The Economic Times
Jet to fly to Dubai
DUBAI, July 11, 2008: Jet Airways, which is already flying to to Abu Dhabi, Doha, Muscat, Bahrain and Kuwait, will start operation to Dubai from Delhi and Mumbai probably by middle of next month. The flights could start probably by mid-August as the airline has to make preparations for the timings and slots at airports, sources told media.
On an average, Jet reports nearly 65 per cent load factor on its Gulf routes. In some sectors it is higher.
Sources said though the airline has permission for its low-cost subsidiary,
Jetlite, to fly to the Gulf region, it is contemplating when to launch the service to the region considering low-cost carriers are losing money as a result of high oil prices.
The Dubai-Delhi and Dubai-Mumbai sector is the most lucrative for the Indian carriers. On January 1 this year, Jet Airways commenced operations to the Gulf and is India's first private airline to start services to the region with non-stop daily flights connecting India with Bahrain and Kuwait. - PTI
Airlines cut flights, change course of business
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI, July 07: 2008: There is more bad news from the aviation industry. Hit by high fuel prices, major airlines have reduced flights on the domestic circuit as demand is ebbing and flights are going half empty. It is learnt that state-owned carrier Air India has cancelled around 30 flights whereas Jet Airways grounded more than 20 flights due to poor bookings. Delhi-based budget carrier SpiceJet has cancelled around 10 flights and Simplify Deccan has done away with 50 flights. Jet Airways has combined some flights, due to poor loads, on routes like
Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata.
Kingfisher is said to have postponed plans for international operations and the target now is September 2008 instead of August 2008.
For the last few months, Indian carriers' attempts to find funds for their loss-making ventures (that can be as high as Rs 9 crore daily for giants like Air India-IA or Jet-JetLite) could get more desperate now as crude inches towards the $150 mark. Soure: The Economic Times
Airlines feel price hike pinch
New Delhi, July 02, 2008: Seven employees of Go Air were handed
a pre-drafted resignation letter, on which they had to sign. “We were forced to sign a pre-drafted resignation letter,” said one of them on
condition of anonymity. He said, “The company officials have told us we are being retrenched as the company is in losses and
such an action is necessary.”
Reacting to the development, Jeh Wadia, managing director, Go Air said: “Yes we
are downsizing the company. Since we have pulled out from some routes we need to
downsize.”
Go Air’s 10 per cent cut in employee strength is perhaps only the first
downsizing story in the Indian aviation sector. Incessant hike in aviation fuel prices coupled with increasing operating costs
has left the airlines in a financial tizzy. Oil marketing companies on Monday again hiked aviation turbine fuel prices by
4.3 per cent. Jet fuel is about 60 to 70 per cent higher in India than anywhere in world, the
overriding reason why airlines in India are in bad fiscal health. Low-cost carrier Spice Jet has decided to close operations at Jaipur and has
reduced the number of flights to 97 from 117 per day.
Source: Hindustan Times
Airline companies hike airfares
MUMBAI, June 20, 2008: The country’s largest private airline, Jet Airways, state-owned Air India and low-cost airline SpiceJet have raised fares following the recent hike in jet fuel prices. A Jet Airways
executive confirmed that the airline has increased its base fares for up to 750 km by Rs 1,000,
between 750 km and 1,000 km by Rs 2,250 and beyond 1,000 km by Rs 3,000.
The base fare on Jet’s Mumbai-Chennai route will go up from Rs 1,350 to Rs 3,000 while that on the Bangalore-Hyderabad route will go up from Rs 600 to Rs 1,000. The new charges are being added to the base fare and do not include taxes and fuel and congestion surcharges as levied by various
airlines. Air India has also raised its base fares by Rs 1,000 for up to 750 km and by Rs 2,250 for distances between 750 km and 1000 km. These hikes in fares are to be effective from June 20.
New Delhi-based SpiceJet has increased the fuel surcharge on its routes. The fuel surcharge for up to 750 km (short-haul) has gone up by Rs 300 and beyond 750 km by Rs 550.
Travel agency sources said Kingfisher too has hiked fares but it was not confirmed independently. Industry sources said the
InterGlobe-promoted Indigo is likely to take a decision on the fare hike next week. The aviation industry had suffered a loss of Rs 4,000 crore in 2007-08. The losses are expected to double in the current fiscal.
Analysts said with global oil prices spiralling, airlines have hiked fuel surcharges five times in the past five months. ATF prices have risen from Rs 20,000 per kilolitre in 2004 to Rs 70,000 per kilolitre currently while the average fare has declined from Rs 6,000 in 2004 to Rs 3,900 during 2007. Other airlines have already increased their fuel surcharges in the past few weeks, including private airlines Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines and Simplify Deccan, which hiked it by Rs 300-550. Spicejet announced last week that it would be reducing its flights from 117 per day to 100 per day to combat soaring jet fuel prices. -: The Economic Times
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