European airframer Airbus S.A.S. announced the sale of the last two A340-500 aircraft in its inventory, marking an end of the longest range model of its portfolio. AJW Capital Partners Limited, a worldwide aviation services group based in the UK, has signed a firm contract for the purchase of two Airbus A340-500s aircraft. With this order AJW Capital becomes the …
Read More »Over the last few months, I have grown to respect Tarun Shukla. Tarun and his colleague P.R. Sanjai at the Mint newspaper (a joint venture of The Hindustan Times and The Wall Street Journal), take the time to well research and write, analytical stories on the Indian aviation industry. This week, Tarun has detailed the rather rapid decline of Paramount …
Read More »The drama involving Chennai based Paramount Airways and GE Commercial Aviation Services (GECAS) over a dispute on refunds and payments, began last Friday. Paramount officials explained that the dispute with GECAS was over maintenance reserves and deposit refund. An airline release claimed “Paramount had made a $15 million deposit to GECAS – $5 mn as deposit and $10 mn as …
Read More »The Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Mr Murli Deora, informed the Lok Sabha (lower house of the Indian parliament) that Indian domestic airlines Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways, National Aviation Company of India Ltd (Air India), Paramount and SpiceJet, still owe a whopping Rs. 2,225.52 Crore ($445 million) to the stated owned oil marketing companies Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum …
Read More »John Leahy is a happy man; may not be as happy as in 2007, but surely the orders received for the Airbus A320 and A350 families at this year’s Paris air show, must give him a cautious sense of optimism. Airbus SAS is expected to walk away from Le Bourget with about orders for 110 new planes or commitments worth …
Read More »Buoyed by the summer holiday season and the continuing rise in the Indian economy, domestic passenger traffic rose by almost 20% to 3.93 million in May from 3.315 million passengers in April. There was no significant change in the market shares of the various airlines, but the low cost carriers IndiGo, SpiceJet, Go Air and JetLite have continued increasing their …
Read More »The month of April has been bringing signs of a slowing down in the economic slow down. Industrial production, railways freight loading (indicative of raw materials for the core sector of steel, cement, mining), employment, stock markets and even inflation rates have moved back in to positive territory. While it a month does not make a trend, there is a …
Read More »2008 was the year reality struck home in the Indian airline industry. One whiff of the downturn exposed the lack of robust business planning, and abundance of financial vulnerability of Indian carriers, leaving all of them battered and bruised, some more than others. We saw mass-scale defaulting on payments by carriers in India to everyone from airports to aircraft manufacturers. …
Read More »2008 was a torrid year for domestic airlines in India, as recently released figures by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) show. Domestic passenger traffic for the year 2008 fell 5% from 42.58 million to 40.77 million (Fig. 1), driven by the increase in fuel costs, and the massive hikes in air fares, which are yet to fully retreat, and …
Read More »I must tip my hat to the travel agents’ associations in India. Their strategy of targeting one airline at a time, has paid handsome dividends. From a paltry five per cent commission on the basic fare, they have successfully made all the airlines pay three per cent on the gross fare, which includes the fuel surcharges, on domestic fares. Passengers …
Read More »Air India launched (05-Dec-08) a promotional scheme for passengers travelling on its select domestic metro sectors. The scheme titled ‘Winter Warmth’ will be applicable for travel between the four metros – Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai; and also between the four metros cities and Bangalore/Hyderabad. The scheme, aims at frequent flyers – award of one free return ticket of two …
Read More »Paramount Airways extended its services to Western India, by launching daily flights from Chennai to Pune. Paramount already serves Ahmedabad and Goa from Chennai. Commenting on the Pune launch Mr Thiagarajan, MD, Paramount Airways said, “As part of our expansion strategy we have launched the Chennai – Pune sector today. This we believe will help our foray into the western …
Read More »Paramount Airways adds new routes to its networkWill enhance operations from 62 flights to 66 flights a day in the following weeksBy TBM Staff | Chennai Madurai based, Paramount Airways is planning to enhance its operations from 62 flights a day to 66 flights a day in the following weeks. The new routes include Bangalore-Vishakapatnam (direct), Chennai-Vishakapatnam (direct) and Chennai-Tiruchipalli …
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Bangalore Aviation News, Reviews, Analysis and opinions of Indian Aviation