It'll be a frosty Christmas for airlines cos

Mumbai: Indian domestic airlines continued to fly into Mumbai on Thursday. But analysts say the outlook for the industry has become gloomy, as
leisure travellers may now cancel their bookings in the forthcoming Christmas holiday season due to adverse travel advisories issued by various governments.
State-owned Air India and the country’s largest-private sector airline, Jet Airways, operated flights out of terror-struck Mumbai according to their normal schedules while low-cost carrier Spice Jet offered to refund for cancellation.
Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines clubbed some of its flights on the Delhi-Mumbai, Bangalore-Mumbai, Hyderabad-Mumbai and Nashik-Mumbai sectors with other flights on the same routes.
In a statement to its employees, Mr Mallya said, “The extent and manner of these attacks are unprecedented in our country and leads me to conclude that terrorists will stop at nothing. At Kingfisher Airlines, safety and security are our most important parameters and each one of you must take extreme care to ensure that both safety and security are strictly enforced.”
A Jet Airways spokesperson also said that their flights in and out of Mumbai would operate in accordance with their normal schedule. Industry analysts say the terror attacks have come at a time when the industry was expecting to earn some revenues in the peak season of Christmas.
Meanwhile, Jet Airways asked passengers to report well before the flight’s departure. “Passengers are advised to carry a valid identification document and report to the airline’s counter well in advance from the scheduled departure,” a Jet spokesperson said.
28/11/08 Mithun Roy/Economic Times

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Nov 2008