New demands take flight

Pune: Taking into consideration what looks like increasing demand from Pune-based commuters to reach varied tourist destinations in minimum time, it appears airline companies have recently started providing several domestic flights from here, connected via well-frequented metro cities.

Over the last two months, airline companies introduced around nine such connected domestic flights — all of which have been getting an overwhelming response, they say.

In August, Spice Jet launched its first Pune-Mysore flight via Bangalore — it facilitates reaching destinations like Ooty, Kodaikanal, Coorg and others. Previously, to reach these locations, a Bangalore flight would generally be followed by road transport — this, however, was inconvenient because of heavy Bangalore traffic.

Nilesh Bhansali, director of the Travel Agents Association of Pune (PAAT), explained, "To tackle this problem, Spice Jet introduced the Pune-Mysore flight via Bangalore some days ago. This departs early in the morning and reaches by afternoon, after a one-hour halt at Bangalore airport. People prefer to halt at the airport rather than getting stuck in traffic, as it saves their time and energy."
30/08/14 Sukirt Gumaste/Pune Mirror

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Three flights delay disturbs passengers

Indore : The passengers of three airlines got disturbed on Friday evening due to the flight delay at the Devi Ahilya Bai International Airport.
Jet Airways evening Delhi-Indore-Delhi flight JAI 2793 arrived to the city airport at 21.05 hour and flew back to Delhi at 21.35 hour, while its scheduled arrival and departure timing is 20.40 and 21.10 hour. Similarly, Air India’s flight AIC-636 arrived from Delhi at 20.10 hour and departed to Mumbai at 20.40 hour, while its scheduled arrival and departure timing is 19.30 and 20.05 hour.
30/08/14 Freepress Journal 

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IndiGo plans daily direct flight between Vizag and Delhi

New Delhi: IndiGo will start a direct daily flight between Vizag and Delhi and a third daily flight between Vizag and Hyderabad from October 10.

The decision to start the flights, which will see IndiGo consolidate its position as the largest operator from Vizag with seven daily departures, was announced following a meeting with Civil Aviation Minister, Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and representative of airlines here on Tuesday.

At the meeting, the Chief Minister said the State is favourably considering a proposal to reduce the sales tax on aviation turbine fuel to about 1 per cent.
26/08/14 Business Line

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Indigo to launch daily direct flight between Vizag and Delhi

New Delhi:  IndiGo is to start a direct daily flight between Vizag and Delhi and a third daily flight between Vizag and Hyderabad from October 10.

The decision to start the flights, which will see IndiGo consolidate its position as the largest operator from Vizag with seven daily departures, was announced following a meeting with Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and Civil Aviation Minister Raju here on Tuesday.

At the meeting the Chief Minister said the State is favourably considering a proposal to reduce the sales tax on aviation turbine fuel to about 1 per cent. Confirming the development, IndiGo President, Aditya Ghosh, said booking for the Vizag-Delhi flight had been opened.
26/08/14 Business Line

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40 senior pilots quit IndiGo in one year

Mumbai: Low-cost carrier IndiGo, whose market share dropped by a per cent in July to 30.7, has also lost as many as 40 commanders or senior pilots mainly to Gulf carriers in the last one year.

While most of these commanders quit the airline for better prospects, some of them also parted ways due to the work culture, sources in the Gurgaon-based airline told PTI.

"Around 40 commanders have parted ways with the airline over the past one year as most of them got lucrative offers from Gulf carriers," a source said.
Text messages sent to IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh and airline's PR agency for a comment on the issue did not yield any response.

According to recent DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) data, Indigo's market share stood at 30.7 per cent in July this year over 31.6 per cent in June.

Of the around 900 pilots, half being commanders, sources said, "the migration accounts for nearly 10 per cent of total loss of commanders."

According to sources, Gulf carriers, including Emirates and Qatar Airways, have hired Indian pilots in big numbers in recent months and most of the IndiGo pilots have opted for these airlines.

"Besides tax-free salaries, these airlines also offer a better work environment. Though most of the pilots have left the airline for greener pastures, a few of them also left for better work culture," sources said.
24/08/14 PTI/Times of India

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‘Depressed’ Mumbai student creates ruckus, delays flight by an hour

Mumbai: A 21-year-old student from Mumbai, reportedly suffering from depression, created ruckus on an Indigo Airlines flight from Delhi on Friday afternoon, delaying the flight for an hour. He was later asked to get off board.

As the flight started to move towards the runway for takeoff at 2.30 pm, Rishabh Sethi ran to the cockpit door and started banging on it, demanding to see the captain. When prevented, he started screaming and had to be overpowered by passengers in an exercise that lasted about 20 minutes.

Airline crew said they tried to talk to Sethi but he refused to budge. He manhandled a crew member when she tried to call the captain using the intercom. "He snatched the handset from the crew member and tried to speak to the captain," an airport official said. As Sethi got more aggressive, some passengers intervened and overpowered him.

In the interest of passenger safety, the pilot took a call to reject the takeoff and returned to the aircraft bay, where Sethi was handed over to the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel, who had been alerted by the Air Traffic Controller (ATC).

Since Sethi had two checked-in bags that also had to be offloaded, the flight was delayed for an hour and took off only at 3.39 pm.
23/08/14 Aditya Anand/Mumbai Mirror

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IndiGo to take 12 planes on lease from Tigerair

New Delhi: Airlines in India are sprucing up their arsenal to take on the soon-to-intensify competition in the domestic sky with the entry of new carriers.

IndiGo, India's largest airline in terms of domestic carriage, is taking on lease two planes every month from Singapore-based Tigerair from October to next March — which means adding 12 new planes to its current fleet of 79 by the end of this fiscal.

While IndiGo refused to comment, sources say the LCC is eying to have as many slots as possible at busy airports next summer. The fleet is being expanded at a time when the budget airline is expected to launch its IPO, which means it will get funds for expansion. The airline has now become eligible for FDI too as its promoter's FDI holding is being converted to NRI holding, freeing up the 49% space that can be held by foreign airlines or FIIs.
22/08/14 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Following IndiGo’s footsteps: Why Raju asked Air India to ground older air hostesses

New Delhi:  IndiGo is being used as a benchmark for getting Air India back to black. Sources in the Ministry of Civil Aviation said today that recent instructions to Air India on grounding older air hostesses and improving on-time performance were given after a careful study of these parameters at IndiGo. How is the age of air hostesses related to profitability?

Well, these sources pointed out that older cabin crew "get slower" and this affects aircraft turnaround (time taken to get aircraft ready for next flight). "We looked at IndiGo. They have young crew and their turnaround time is 25 minutes whereas for Air India, this gets done in 45 minutes. We need to lower the age of crew to be able to bring in efficiencies," these sources said.

They said Air India's on-time performance is also impacted because it has to use older crew and clear instructions have been given that if need be, young crew should be hired afresh. They did not provide an estimate of how many air hostesses were over-aged and will consequently will have to re-deployed in ground functions.

To begin with, Air India has agreed to ground air hostesses 45 years and above though Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju wants the age to be lowered further to 35 years subsequently.
20/08/14 Sindhu Bhattacharya/First Post

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Close shave for IndiGo passengers

Patna: Altogether 177 passengers of a Mumbai-bound Indigo Airlines flight (IndiGo 6E191) had a close shave after a bird hit its port-side engine at the Jayaprakash Narayan International Airport, Patna on Saturday.

The passengers suffered no injuries and were sent to their destination by another aircraft. The airline's executive could not be contacted.

The port-side engine was hit, said executive director, Centre for Aviation Policy, Safety and Research, New Delhi, Atul Singh, adding that the officials of private airliners were generally in the habit of hushing-up such incidents. Elaborating on the technical aspect of the incident, he said the abrupt halt of the aircraft after it attained rotating speed with its 'nose up' could have created a major emergency "with its own fuel playing havoc".

Six retired defence personnel have already been deployed as bird chasers - two on the runway and one on the air traffic control tower for bursting crackers immediately before the takeoff and touchdown of aircrafts at the airport. The bird chasers have ample time to chase off birds in case of landing. but always have to rush during takeoff.
17/08/14 Aditya Vaibhav/Times of India

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DGCA issues notices to 22 ex-Indigo pilots for not serving notice period

Aviation regulator DGCA issued showcause notices to 22 former Indigo pilots who have left the airlines without serving their mandatory notice periods after quitting and has also warned them that they could face cancellation of their licenses.

According to a CNN-IBN report, these pilots have been given a 15-day period to respond to the notice. The pilots have to inform DGCA why their licenses should not be cancelled, considering they didn't serve the 6-month notice period.

With a large number of senior pilots quitting jobs in Indian carriers for greener pastures abroad, the DGCA warned them of stringent action last week including punitive steps like cancellation of licences of those leaving without serving notice.

Last week, DGCA's Joint Director General Lalit Gupta wrote to the CEOs of all Indian airlines to prepare a list of such pilots who have left and joined foreign carriers "without informing and providing minimum notice period" in accordance with rules or Civil Aviation Requirements (CARs), along with their license numbers and other details.
12/08/14 FirstBiz

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IndiGo is the largest, most reliable domestic airline

IndiGo emerged as the best Indian airline in terms of reliability and punctuality, according to data released last month by  Flightstats.com, based on the top 20 domestic routes per airline between May 15 and July 15.

IndiGo tops in all three parameters that the website used to evaluate the airlines: the percentage of flights that were on time, the average delay and the number of flights diverted or cancelled.

The airline has many satisfied customers on Twitter. “On time (never failed me), decent food, fun branding, great service," tweeted @SpinAndSwirl on July 29.
SpiceJet comes last on two parameters and in the middle in the third, as seen in the charts above. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation asked the airline on July 28 to refund the full fares and Rs 15,000 worth of food and drinks it sold to passengers when one of its flights was delayed by almost five hours.

The airline regulator took what is perhaps an unprecedented step, of penalising an airline by asking it to pay such a heavy fine, after receiving a complaint from passenger Harsh Surana. SpiceJet made passengers of a flight from Mumbai to Delhi on June 16 wait for nearly four hours after landing to deliver their luggage.

State-owned Air India fell in the middle, which means that it is doing better in the domestic market than internationally, where it appears to have several problems. (See a Scroll.in report.)
11/08/14 Sahil Bhalla/Scroll

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Bird-hit grounds flight at Ahmedabad airport, all aboard safe

Ahmedabad:  As many as 95 Mumbai-bound passengers had a narrow escape on Saturday after the aircraft they were flying in suffered a bird-hit at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport. The incident caused minor damage to the airplane's engine. Indigo flight 6E-244 Ahmedabad-Mumbai took-off at 9:30 am from the airport and, at 9:45am, reported a bird-hit and landed back. Officials of Air Traffic Control (ATC) confirmed that two blades of the rotor were damaged on the left side and the aircraft had to be grounded. The flight had six crew members as well.

"Indigo's Mumbai bound flight was bird-hit during take-off. All the passengers were safe. There have been minor incidents of bird-hit earlier in the year but this is the first major incident as the flight was grounded," said R K Singh, airport director.
Indigo airlines officials confirmed that the flight suffered damage and was grounded at the city airport. All the passengers were accommodated in various Indigo flights and left from Ahmedabad by 1.30pm.
10/08/14 Times of India

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CCI clears InterGlobe Aviation-Caelum merger

Mumbai: The Competition Commission has approved the proposed merger of US-based Caelum Investment into InterGlobe Aviation, the holding company of budget airlines Indigo.

The Competition Commission of India in an order released today said that the "proposed combination is not likely to have an appreciable adverse effect on competition in India".

The regulator stated that Caelum does not have investments in any other air transport services company.

"It is observed that there is no horizontal overlap or vertical relation of any kind between InterGlobe Aviation and Caelum or any of their group companies," CCI said.

"Further, the proposed combination will not result in any change either in the structure of the market or the number of entities present in the business of air transport and ancillary services in India," it added.

As per details in the order, Caelum holds around 47.88 per cent stake in InterGlobe Aviation.
05/08/14 PTI/Business Standard

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Six diverted planes from Delhi land in Jaipur

Jaipur: ix Delhi-bound flights, including two international ones, were diverted to Jaipur due to poor visibility at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi on Saturday.

The first flight came at 1.30 pm and left for Delhi at 2.30 pm. The flights were two Indigo Airlines (from Srinagar and Bangalore), two Jet airlines (from Dhaka and Singapore) and one SpiceJet (Bangalore) and one Air India (Bangalore).

Jaipur airport director Paul Manikam said: "Reports said that due to bad weather-thunderstorms and high wind speed--visibility was down at Delhi airport leaving operations suspended for 40 minutes. During the period, our ATC was on high alert and was ready to receive more flights."
03/08/14 Times of India

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Conditional Foreign Investment Promotion Board nod to change IndiGo’s stakeholding status

New Delhi: The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) on Friday gave conditional nod to budget carrier IndiGo's proposal for converting its co-founder's 48% FDI into NRI investment so that it could clear up the 49% stake which an Indian carrier can sell to foreign companies, airlines or FIIs.

"IndiGo's proposal has been cleared subject to approval of high court," an official said after a meeting of the board that is headed by finance secretary Arvind Mayaram.

IndiGo sought the nod just ahead of an impending IPO so that it can sell shares to FIIs too. A number of foreign airlines like Qatar Airways have also expressed interest in buying into IndiGo.
IndiGo's holding company InterGlobe Aviation Ltd is currently 48% owned by co-founder Rakesh Gangwal's US-based Caelum Investments. This investment falls under FDI and current rules allow an airline to have only 49% FDI from foreign airlines and companies.
02/08/14 Times of India

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FIPB gives conditional nod to IndiGo's FDI proposal

New Delhi: FIPB on Friday gave conditional approval to the proposal of InterGlobe Aviation which would pave the way for fresh foreign direct investment in private air carrier IndiGo.

"IndiGo's proposal has been cleared subject to approval of High Court," an official said after a meeting of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) headed by Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaram.

InterGlobe Aviation is the holding company of IndiGo.

As per the proposal, equity holding of IndiGo's promoter Rakesh Gangwal through Caelum

Investments will be classified as NRI investment and free the FDI limit for fresh investment.

Gangwal through Caelum Investments (incorporated in Delaware, US) holds a 47.88 per cent stake in InterGlobe Aviation. Rahul Bhatia owns the remaining stake in InterGlobe Aviation.
01/08/14 Zee News

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