Airlines India, Indian Airlines

After the proposed merger of the Indian Airlines with Air India, the cargo arm of Indian Airlines will be hived off to operate as separate entity. The proposed cargo operations will be handled as a division of Indian Airlines till the process of merger is completed. The airline has already taken approval from the Government of India for its cargo operations. India has a huge market for cargo carriers and is growing at a rate of 20 percent per year. Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines are also planning to start their cargo operations. with the booming retail sector, the cargo business is expected to grow at a higher pace as the retail companies would use air cargo services to ship their goods to various destinations across the country.

Under the process the airline is planning to convert some of its existing passenger carriers into freighters. To start with, the airline will convert its five Boeing 737 aircrafts into cargo carriers. Some non airline companies are also showing their interests in air cargo business, therefore, the airline companies are making their first moves to encash the upcoming opportunity.

AIR INDIA EXPRESS, India’s only International budget airline and fully owned subsidiary of AIR INDIA is happy to announce the schedule for direct flights between Mangalore and Dubai, as well as, flights between Amritsar, Delhi and Dubai.

The inaugural flight on 3rd October 2006, will commence at Delhi proceed to Amritsar and onwards to Dubai. On the same day operations between Mangalore and Dubai will start. Special inaugural fares are being offered for a limited period.

Effective 5th October 2006, there will be three weekly frequencies each between Amritsar, Delhi, Mangalore and Dubai. Departures from India will be every Monday, Thursday and Saturday as follows: (all times local)

DELHI/AMRITSAR to DUBAI and return

Delhi Departure 0910, Amritsar departure 1125 Dubai arrival 1310

The return flight will depart Dubai on every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday as follows: Dubai Departure 0001; Amritsar arrival 0430; Delhi arrival 0645.

MANGALORE to DUBAI and return – every Monday, Thursday and Saturday

Mangalore departure 2100 –Dubai arrival 2300

Dubai departure 1410 –Mangalore arrival 1910

Air India Express now operates 41 flights per week between Amritsar, Delhi, Mangalore, Kozhikode, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram and Muscat, Salalah, Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and Al Ain.

The flights will be operated by Boeing 737-800 aircraft in an all Economy version.

Air India has relaxed the security measures that had angered passengers from Bahrain. The ban on liquids and duty free purchases, however, will continue. Passengers will now be allowed to carry laptops, cameras and mobile phones on board aircraft as cabin baggage, an airline official said.

Travel documents, cash, jewellery, medicines (accompanied by doctors’ prescriptions), other documents (school certificates and medical certificates among others) and infant food (only if an infant is travelling) are allowed on board.

On August 20, Air India banned all liquids and gels from cabin baggage and the ban was extended to cover all sorts of hand baggage, including duty free items, on August 28.

The match was supposed to be anything but lop-sided. Seventy minutes later, it turned out to be nothing but lop-sided.

The Air India got another step closer to this year’s BHA Super Division Mumbai Hockey League title by handing a 8-3 thrashing to leaders ONGC at the Mahindra Stadium on Tuesday.

Air India, following the Tuesday’s victory, share the top spot with ONGC with 17 points but have an advantage since the airmen have one match more to play.

What swept ONGC off their feet was Air India’s speed and the latter’s persistent efforts for penalty corners.

Even Air India coach K Poonacha agreed. “We always look for as many penalty corners as possible. But this scoreline was definitely not what we expected,” he said.

Earlier, drag-flicker Len Aiyappa sounded the board first up in the sixth minute converting the team’s second penalty corner. In the next 11 minutes, Aiyappa converted two more short corners.

Five minutes later, Air India Gurvinder Singh Chandi perfectly timed his pass from the right flank into the centre to Joga Singh. In a bid to cover the post from a possible strike from Chandi, ONGC ‘keeper Kamaldeep Singh left it unguarded paving way for Joga Singh to take the Air India score to 4.

Aiyappa kicked off the scoring in the second half too and no points for guessing that it was off a penalty corner.

The four goals have taken the Aiyappa’s tally to ten, highest this season in the tournament.

But what really stole the show were two gems by Air India’s new recruit Bruno Lugun. A product of their academy, Lugun effected two reverse hits within a minute’s span of each other. In the first one, Lugun got around an ONGC defender a full 360 degree and unleashed a reverse hit that had the ONGC custodian dazed.

The second one was even better since Lugun, who was at a very acute angle of the post, managed to send the ball past the hapless ‘keeper to sound the boards.

Joga Singh scored last of the eight goals for the eventual winners in the 53rd minute.
The three consolation goals for ONGC were scored by Gurpreet Singh, Sandeep Antil and Anurag Raghuvanshi in 12th, 50th and 57th minute respectively.

In another match of the day, Western Railway beat Bombay Customs 3-2, thanks to strikes by captain Anand Sondkar, Hardeep Singh and Chandrakesh K. Osaf-ur-Rehman and Mohammad Ishaq reduced the margin for Customs.

Weighed down by surging jet fuel prices, Air-India’s net profit plunged by a huge 82.54 per cent at Rs 16.29 crore for the year 2005-06. The net profit for the year 2004-05 was Rs 93.31 crore. Fuel constituted a third of the airline’s total cost.

The fuel bill of Air-India, including its subsidiary which runs low-cost carrier Air-India Express, shot up by 43.62 per cent during the last financial year at Rs 3,134 crore against Rs 2,182 crore during 2004-05.

Company sources said the loss due to higher aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices was in excess of Rs 650 crore. Total revenue from operations grew 25 per cent at Rs 9,677 crore for the last financial year, against Rs 7,751 crore in 2004-05.

“Air-India is slated to surpass the Rs 10,000 crore mark in this financial year with current expansion programme,” sources said. However, with the rise in jet fuel prices, total expenditure too grew 25 per cent at Rs 9,660 crore during the year under review compared with Rs 7,610 crore during 2004-05.

To curb adverse impact of its fuel bill, the airline has extended its hedging limits from 10 per cent of its international uplifts to 25 per cent.

“This will give flexibility to the company to hedge up to 75,000 barrels a day, up from the current limit of 30,000 barrels. However, the total number of barrels to be hedged will be limited to 7,50,000 a quarter,” said S Venkat, company secretary.

The wage bill, too, had adverse affect on the airline’s operation. It constituted 11.20 per cent of the total expenses of Air-India. The total wage bill for 2005-06 stood at Rs 1,055 crore, much higher than Rs 977 crore in the earlier financial year.

Sources said high crew salary, navigational cost, landing and handling charges had also impacted the operations of the airline.

Air-India entered into a purchase agreement with US-based aircraft manufacturer Boeing for acquiring 68 aircraft at a listed price of $11 billion. The airline is also readying for a merger with Indian.