Tag Archives: Indian Aviation

Indigo reported its Q1FY20 results on Friday. With a profit of INR 1203 crore it is the highest net profit for any airline in Indian aviation. The airline looked good on all metrics ranging from financial to strategic and operational. Interestingly, while this quarter was indeed driven by the collapse of Jet Airways, Indigo’s contention is that this did not …

Jet Airways has suspended operations as of April 17, 2019.  It was an action that should have been taken much earlier. The debate continues on whether a consortium will successfully bid and re-start the airline or if the government will step-in. While the 16,000+ employees are still hopeful, the fact of the matter is that actions have left the airline …

Global aviation leaders at the Farnborough international air show 2014 termed India’s decision to levy service tax of 12.36% on aircraft lease charges as a regressive step which will only hurt India’s already over-taxed airlines. As per a report in The Mint, the maiden Union budget of the Narendra Modi led NDA government proposes to levy the service tax effective …

This week Bangalore Aviation crossed 2.3 million annual page views. On behalf of the entire team, I extend our sincerest and heartfelt thanks to each of our readers for their constant support in making us India’s leading aviation analysis website. You can see the readership statistics on the right side-bar about mid-way down the page. We are also ranked 15 …

Continuing the series of Indian carrier financial analyses, today we take a look at Kingfisher. Previous Analyses: SpiceJet Following the trend of most Indian carriers, Kingfisher posted a drop in net income; facing a net pretax loss of Rs. 3.90 billion vs. a pretax loss of Rs. 2.64 billion in Q1 2011. As compared to SpiceJet, Kingfisher did not see …

Low cost carrier SpiceJet over the weekend revealed its initial Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 operations, with 225 weekly flights operating on 17 distinct city pairs (see end of post for the full operation). The new flights will all commence between September 21st and October 4th. Operations will be made possible by the delivery of 5 brand-new Q400s from Bombardier by …

Plane photography is one of the most misunderstood hobbies in India. Take out a camera and point it at an aircraft, and you will invite suspicious views from people around you, including the security personnel. These suspicions are however misplaced due to a complete ignorance of the law, both by the general populace as well as security personnel. Just two …

Domestic air traffic in India surged a whopping 18.3% to almost 42 million for the first ten months of the year compared to 35.5 million for the same period last year. For the month of October which marks the start of the peak travel period third quarter of the fiscal, the growth was 16.3% to 4.62 million compared to October …

About two weeks ago, Air India announced it was going to extend its low cost operation Air India Express in to the domestic market. Across Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites I detected a snigger from many fellow aviation bloggers and enthusiasts – Air India, a national carrier going low cost ? How low can Air India fall ? …

All airlines in India have been slashing their fares since January. The sheer numbers of special offers, and schemes coming across my desk have overwhelmed me. However, these appear to be coming to an end. Despite a drastic cut in fares of nearly 50 per cent for full service airlines and over 40 per cent on low cost carriers the …

The turmoil in the Indian airline industry during the month of October has produced results that can be, only mildly described as, significant. In just four weeks, castles built over the last four or more years, have come crashing down. By the end of 2008, the Indian airline industry which accounts for less than 2% of the global airline market, …

As a regular flier around the world, I would always experience the mental shock of coming down the levels as I transited from my Singapore Airlines flight, on to a domestic US carrier. It did not matter whether it was American, Continental, Delta, United, or US Airways, it did not matter if the transition was from economy to economy, or …

The bad news just does not stop for the domestic Indian civil aviation industry. Recently released figures show an alarming drop to only 8.6 million domestic passengers for the third quarter of (July-September) 2008, with a miserable 2.68 million passengers for September 2008. This represents a 17% reduction over the same period last year, a 19% reduction from the previous …

The tumultuous last week in the Indian aviation scenario, which rivalled the best soap opera dramas of Bollywood, Tollywood or Sandalwood, shows no signs of abating. The popular joke of the day is “Who says there is a CREDIT crunch in India? See all the politicians taking CREDIT” [for ‘protecting’ the jobs of the Jet Airways staff]. The fight between …

The blood letting in the Indian aviation industry shows no signs of stopping. After the much publicised sacking of 850 cabin crew early on October 15, Jet Airways announced the retrenchment of another 1,050 staff, which also includes flight crews. News reports indicate that another 1,000 jobs will be cut by the end of this year. That will bring down …

The air transport cartel is at it, again. In all too familiar theme, we passengers must get ready to pay one more “fee“. Readers will recall that airlines decided to scrap travel agent commissions, in India, effective October 31, 2008. This move by the airlines, created an uproar in the industry and led to strikes and protests. Presently, airlines pay …

Airports need 1,000 more ATC officersAnirban Chowdhury / New Delhi If you thought that the IGI airport in Delhi is the only one suffering a shortage of air traffic controllers (ATC), think again. The country has 1,500 ATC officers, which is only 60 per cent of its requirement of 2,500 ATC officers. And despite new recruitments and training, the shortage …

Perfect storm Shuchi Bansal Airlines are blaming the rising ATF prices for their woes. But it is also a crisis of their own making. How are they coping? The exasperation in Saroj K Datta’s voice is unmistakable. “We are doing whatever needs to be done — capacity rationalisation, maintaining aircraft fuel efficiency, and so on,” says the executive-director of Jet …

Foreign airlines flock to India, ignore global downturn India is seen as a growing market for international airline traffic and the current market size is nearly $5 billion (Rs 21,000 cr) a year They are cutting flights to several destinations in the wake of a worldwide slump in business, but international airlines are doing just the opposite in India because …

From October 1, 2008, airlines in India are going to stop paying commissions on their tickets sales by travel agents. Travel agents are understandably incensed. Until about a year ago they used to earn 9% commission, which was dropped to 5%, and in another 2 months, will drop to 0. Industry experts say most small agents will shut shop, while …