Airlines India, Indian Airlines

Jet Airways has announced a daily flight from Kolkata to Port Blair from 11th November 2006. This is going to be the first foreign flight from kolkata. Additionally the airline will also commence a daily flight to Bangkok from Delhi from the same date. For the Kolkata Port Blair flight, Jet Airlines will keep four aircrafts of its fleet at Kolkata.

Presently Jet Airways’ 17 percent revenue comes from international operations and 83 percent from domestic operations. The airline is aiming at a 50 percent revenue from international operations as the competition in the domestic market is getting stiffer. Jet is already flying to Britain, Clolombo, Kuala Lumpur, Kathmandu and Singapore. Besides, the airline has applied for approval to fly in United States and the airline is planning to add more destinations like Canada, China, South Africa, etc. to its list. The margins on international flights are better than domestic flights. The airline is already trying to cut down its fixed costs and come out profitable in the next financial year. With increase in international operations the airline is expecting to boos its revenues and will be able to thrive in the competitive domestic market.

In a bid to meet the market demand, Air India Express has announced direct services to Mangalore, Amritsar and Delhi from October 3.

With the commencement of services to the three cities, Dubai will now be linked to six destinations in the country by Air India Express, India’s budget carrier. It already has
services to Kozhikode, Kochi and Trivandrum.

The Mangalore flight of Air India Express, will meet the long standing demand of passengers hailing from both north Kerala and from Karnataka, a press release said here.

The three-times-a-week service to the city of the Golden Temple, Amritsar, and to Delhi, will cater to the requirements of North Indians for a direct service at affordable fares.

The airline commenced its services on April 29, 2005, with operations to the three Kerala cities.

It has services to Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and Al Ainfour cities in the UAE, the release said.

Low cost carrier Air Deccan will launch a campaign from September 19 to become the number one airline not only in terms of market share, but also being the best in the country, with focus on on-time performance.

It will offer a free ticket if the flight is delayed beyond three hours, except due to fog in December and January.

Announcing the campaign, named `WOW’, here on Saturday, Air Deccan Managing Director G. R. Gopinath, and Chief Operating Officer Warwick Brady, told reporters that the airline had become the second largest scheduled carrier (21.2 per cent market share) next only to Jet Airways (31.2 per cent). Before becoming the leader, Air Deccan intended to become the best airline and, hence, the campaign, they said.

During the last three months, 98 per cent of departures were within one hour of the schedule, Capt. Gopinath said. He urged the Director General of Civil Aviation to post on its website the monthly report on the on-time performance of all airlines to dispel the bogey that low cost airlines were not keeping schedules.

A law prohibiting predatory competition by other airlines to kill low cost airlines on the lines of European countries was needed, Capt. Gopinath said.

The international flights are likely to land at the Bajpe airport here in the first week of October from Dubai, according to airport director M R Vasudeva.

He said that the exact dates will be announced by Air India Express within a week. Sources said the flights will operate on Sundays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and are scheduled to land at 6 pm and take off at 7 pm. Vasudeva said the AAI will allow private participation in cargo operations.

Also, with effect from September 28, the airport will be cleared for Instrument Flight Rules. As of now the flights are cleared for Visual Flight Rules.

Aircraft flights to Kinshasa will resume on Friday, after the security situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had stabilised, South African Airways said on Thursday.

Spokesperson Jacqui O’Sullivan said an SAA flight to the DRC was cancelled on Wednesday after public transport in the capital city came “to a standstill”.

This meant airport staff were not able to get to work.

“The situation has now been stabilised and SAA will resume its normal scheduled operations to the DRC as from tomorrow (Friday), unless the situation changes,” said O’Sullivan.

She said the airline would monitor the situation daily, and passengers would be notified of any changes