British Airways to strike a code-sharing agreement with Go Air

British Airways will soon strike a code sharing, co-branding and marketing agreement with GoAir. This would lead to an equity stake in Go Air by British Airways. By this code-sharing agreement both the airlines will get equally benefited, BA can mark its reputation in Indian market and Go Air can do the same in international market. BA is the largest passenger’s contributor after US so; this is definitely going to help Airlines industry in India. The deal would benefit Go Air by $350 million which is definitely a huge profit to the airlines. For this deal Go Air has appointed a London based Bank Euromax Capital for the transaction.

Indian Government is also looking forward to this agreement between the foreign airlines with domestic flights India. Earlier Royal Bank Scotland and Standard chartered were the two banks which were supposed to make an equity investment into GoAir. The IATA in response has said that 2009 will be the worse year than 2008 in terms of number of passengers and yield, so in these conditions a foreign airline having an equity share in Indian airline is definitely going to lessen the effect of recession in the market of airlines industry.

MRO joint venture between Jet Airways and Malaysia Airlines

A code-sharing agreement has been signed between Malaysia Airlines and Jet Airways. According to agreement signed in Hyderabad, India regarding Joint venture Jet Airways will take care of Malaysia Airline planes maintenance, repair and overhaul i.e. MRO in India by February end. This joint venture will be beneficial for Malaysia airlines as its planes don’t have to fly to Malaysia for MRO services, it can be done in India itself.

Malaysia’s National carrier is hopeful that Jet airways in India would become its anchor tenant after signing the code sharing agreement and they desire of having a commercially viable MRO joint venture. This code sharing agreement is definitely going to help both the airlines to build a strong bond between the two nations. This venture will attract other nations as well to participate in signing these kinds of agreement with India and will help Indian airlines to build a reputation in airlines industry world over.

Recently announced Updated report of Jan-09 Indian Domestic traffic

Indian Ministry of civil aviation recently reported the total passengers carried by domestic airlines in Jan’09. The total passengers carried were 3.3 million. Air India carried 555000 passengers, Jet airways carried 596000 passengers, 241000 passengers were carried by Jet Lite, Kingfisher carried about 919000 passengers, 393000 passengers were carried by Spice jet, Go air carried about 81000 passengers and Indigo airlines carried about 457000 passengers in Jan’09.

The seat factors of domestic airlines in Jan’09 is nearly varied with each other: Indigo has 72.2% of seat factor, Spice jet about 68.3%, Jetlite 67.5%, Jet airways 64.8%, Kingfisher 64.0%, Go air 64.0% and Air India 60.2%. The report generated shows that Kingfisher airlines are ahead of others in carrying passengers and Indigo in seat factors in the month of Jan’09. The Jan’09 domestic traffic data is the result of introducing promotional flights airfares by almost all domestic airlines, report may vary a bit this month as there has been a rise in fares in Feb’09.

A new base fare of Re.1 introduced by Jetlite

As all Indian Airlines are hiking the base fares Jetlite introduced a base fare of Re.1 as a promotional fare. The fare is applied on some of Metro cities flights as well. Meanwhile Jet Airways also announced Rs.300 base fare on the flight routes to major cities. The fares will be effective from 30th April’09. Jet Lite introduced its promotional base fare as it heard about other airlines withdrawing the promotional base fares.

All airlines including Spice Jet, Indigo, Kingfisher and GoAir had a hike in their base fares; they all are now concentrating on earning revenues rather than seat factors. It was assumed that there will be a hike of Rs.1800 to Rs.2000 on the flights from Mumbai to Delhi. Air India in response to withdrawal of promotional fares said that the response was not upto the expectations, so they decided to discontinue with the promotional fares.

Business Travellers never demands for a luxury travel

A survey has been done regarding what a business executive demands while travelling, and was found that it wasn’t the luxury extras but the good service and basic efficiency. They want the things that can help in their official work; proper internet connection is their main priority. Now a day’s business professionals want a proper Wi-Fi connectivity so that they can complete their pending tasks before they reach somewhere for their meeting.

According to the survey the business travelers will go for the basic facilities no matter what is the price of Airline Tickets. Proper internet connectivity is the main priority for worldwide business travellers rather than a peaceful room, good transport and central location. Economic pressure has let the business professionals to think more about the basic facilities rather than the luxury requirements. The same is for the hotels they stay in, hotels must have proper internet connectivity rather than the luxury. Corporate companies have started looking more closely into the travelling expenses which has made the business travellers specially in Asia-Pacific to look for Cheap Air Tickets with basic faculties rather than having luxury flight experience and spending too much on the tickets.

Indian Airlines Plane narrowly escaped a collision

It was a narrow escape for the passengers in Indian Airlines IC 866 was about to collide with a chopper at Mumbai airport. The pilot was quick to spot the army choppers landing on the same runway. It was truly the mistake of Air Traffic Control Mumbai that allowed The President’s plane to land on the same runway when an Indian Airlines flight was about to take for Delhi from there.

The Indianairlines plane has already run about 1-1.5 kms on the runway when an Army helicopter landed. The pilot saw the helicopters when they were just 50 meters away and applied emergency brakes. The plane wheels got damaged as well while the emergency brakes were applied. All the passengers were reported to be safe at the end. The operation of Air Traffic Control comes under scanner and after this incident Airport Authority has launched investigations into the matter.

Hijack scare troubled Security at Delhi Airport

A mid air hijack scare created panic for the on board passengers and the airport security, when an Indigo flight was going from Goa to Delhi. The accuse was arrested and interrogated by Delhi Police on Monday after which the court has sent him to jail for 14 days. The accuse was not happy with the seat allotment and was behaving awkwardly. His behavior forced the pilot to send a hijack alert which caused the emergency landing and the plane was kept in isolation for at least two and a half hours after that.

The accuse threatened the air hostess by saying that he was armed which was the main cause of calling a hijack alert. The CISF took position outside the plane while NSG was inside, taking charge of the situation. Once the situation was under control and was confirmed that there was no hostage situation the NSG was allowed to go ahead and ask the passengers to deboard the Indigo airlines 6E44. Finally, all the passengers and airline crew were safe and the hijack was declared as fake by the NSG.

Economy class ticket in Just Rs 99 – Air India

Air India recently declared its economy class fare price which is Rs 99 and is valid for the month of February only. This offer will also continue after February for the one who books a ticket 21 days in advance. The Business class travelers can enjoy the scheme till February end under which the passenger’s spouse is allowed to travel by paying only the fuel surcharge and the airport user development charge. Air India was lead by Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines last year in flight bookings.

The civil aviation Ministry released its data depicting Jet Airways as India’s largest domestic air services handling a market share of 29.5 percent followed by Kingfisher Airlines handling a market share of 27.6 percent market share. Air India is only handling a market share of 16.3 percent after Jet and Kingfisher airlines which has immensely effected the business of Air India this is the reason why the airlines is introducing new schemes this month.

Kingfisher Airlines Deprived from aviation fuel supply

The Oil marketing companies which are being run by State has threatened Kingfisher airlines that if they will not clear their outstanding of Rs 158 crores the oil marketing companies will stop supplying aviation fuel to the airlines from next Wednesday. The oil companies has started supplying the fuel to Kingfisher and Jet Airways on cash and carry basis from last few days due to the nonpayment of their previous dues for the Last week of October. Jet immediately responded to the situation and paid its dues but Kingfisher still hasn’t cleared its dues with Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum.

Kingfisher Airlines has been affected the most by hike in ATF prices and this can be seen by the loss of Rs 2500 crores faced by the airlines this year. It was decided on 22nd October’08 that the airlines can pay its dues in six easy installments by end of March this year and also asked Oil marketing companies to revise ATF prices every fortnight instead of every month so that international market also gets benefited from the falling ATF prices.

Travel agents protest against foreign airlines commission denial

The travel agents all over India are planning to protest on 30th Jan’09 against the foreign airlines those who have refused to pay the commissions to them. It has been noticed by the travel agents that they have not been paid the commissions on the air ticket booking of the airlines. The international airlines such as Singapore airlines, Lufthansa airlines, Qatar airways, Air France and many more which are operating there airlines in India has deprived the travel agents of the commission on airline tickets booking.

The domestic airlines later on after the protest agreed to pay on 3 percent of airfare. An official of foreign airline said that there would be a temporary reduction in the Indian flights airfares that’s why they were unable to pay the commissions to the travel agents. Now, the airlines are selling the tickets from their offices or online through their websites as there are unable to pay commission to the travel agents.