Feasibility study for airstrip, heliport in Gurvayur

Kochi: The Airport Authority of India (AAI) has begun feasibility studies for setting up an airstrip and heliport in the pilgrim town of Guruvayur in Kerala's Thrissur district.
On Saturday, a technical team led by AAI general manager (Technical) R Rajasekharan arrived in Guruvayur and visited some sites where adequate open land was available. "We visited three sites Pavaratty, Pookkode and Kandanassery near Guruvayur where land is available for the airstrip. Now we have to collect their technical features like, wind direction, speed and obstructions," Rajasekharan told TOI.
The team also visited nearby Dwaraka Beach to see if it could hold a heliport. The Guruvayur Devaswom has about 12 acres of land and the proposal is to set up the heliport there.
"The idea is to promote high-class pilgrim tourism by launching heli-taxi services between Guruvayur and Kochi International Airport," said Thrisuur MP P C Chacko, who took the lead to persuade AAI for the study.
Chacko feels that the heliport can be set up without much delay, as it involves the construction of only a control tower and deployment of security infrastructure. It could even be built on public-private partnership model, he added.
31/10/10 T Ramavarman/Times of India

Read More

Airlines relish rebound after two lean years

Paris: Commercial airlines in the United States, Europe and Asia are at last relishing a rebound in their financial fortunes, announcing profit spurts after two very lean years. The civil aviation sector in recent months has enjoyed a pronounced pick-up in both passenger and freight demand, with airlines welcoming the return of high-end travellers with deep pockets.
US carriers United, Continental, American Airlines and Delta Airlines earlier this month reported solid net earnings, followed this past week by upbeat announcements from airlines in Europe and Asia.
"Airlines are experiencing a growth in traffic volumes and -- most importantly -- a price context that is extremely favourable," said analyst Pierre Boucheny of Kepler Capital.
In the face of a brutal plunge in demand during the finance crisis, airlines undertook drastic capacity cuts and cost reduction initiatives.
Now, as demand firms, carriers have some margin to raise prices.
FBE Aerospace analyst Saj Ahmad nonetheless sounded a cautionary note.
"A recovery does indeed seem under way -- however we are a very long way off from previous profit margins and even further away from sustained profitability.
"With so many mergers in the pipeline, all the hard work could be undone as airlines work for synergies and amalgamation of their businesses -- so it's not over yet.
31/10/10 Agence France-Presse/Hindustan Times

Read More

Rajasthan plane insurance case: CBI raids firm offices

Jaipur: The Jaipur branch of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), on Friday, raided six premises belonging to a brokerage firm named Reliable Brokerage Private Ltd in Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Mumbai. The raids followed the Rajasthan High Court orders in July to begin a CBI probe into the alleged irregularities committed while reinsuring a plane owned by the state government in 2007 and also denial of the insurance claim sought by the state.
Interestingly, the CBI teams found animal skins, including those of black buck, cheetal and python and horns of sambhar from the house of the firm's director Sachinanand Govind in Sirisi Road area.
The incident took place in April 2007 when the then chief minister Vasundhara Raje was on-broad a government plane which slipped on the runway while landing at Indira Gandhi International airport in New Delhi. Although those in the aircraft, including Raje, had a narrow escape, the plane sustained major damages for which an insurance claim of over Rs 2 crore was sought by the state government from New India Assurance Company, which had insured the plane.
30/10/10 Times of India

Read More

Kerala Celebrates 75th Anniversary of Civil Aviation

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala is today celebrating its 75th anniversary of civil aviation service,started with a ‘royal touch’ on this day in 1935 when a plane of Tata Airlines flew in here with the patronage of late Chithira Tirunal Balarama Varma, prince of erstwhile Travancore.
The DH.83 Fox Moth aircraft, owned by patriarch of the Tata house, late J R D Tata, landed at the small airport at Chaakka on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram, with two passengers and a bundle of mail from Mumbai (then Bombay).
Recalling the momentous occasion, the present head of Travancore royal family, Uthradam Trunal Marthada Varma, said it was the far-sightedness of the popular prince that made the air-service a reality at a time when even road and rail connectivity were in its early stages of development in this part of the country.
It was his realisation that air travel was going to be a vital mode of transport in the future and a symbol of progress that prompted the prince to make a personal request to Tata to bring Thiruvananthapuram on aviation map,he said.
With that Travancore down south became one of the few Indian princely states of the pre-independence period to have civil aviation service, historians say.
A large number of dignitaries including the then Travancore Diwan Muhammand Habibulla, C P Ramaswamy Iyer, the city Municipal council president Venkita Krishna Iyer and members of the royal family were present to greet the plane.
Common people, many of whom were seeing an aircraft for the first time, thronged the area to catch a glimpse of the ‘machine bird’ braving downpour.When it hovered over the airport and touched down,they cheered and applauded the event.
Pilot Nevill Vintcent and the two passengers, Jamshed Navoroji, a Tata company official, and Kanchi Dwarakadas, a commercial agent of Travancore, were garlanded by the dignitaries, according to the city's chronicles. The event was also covered by newspapers in both Bombay and Kerala, most of which carried an Associated Press report wired from Bombay.
29/10/10 Lekshmi Gopalakrishnan/Outlook India

Read More

Huge potential for use of helicopters in India: veteran pilot

New Delhi: With India having large parts of inaccessible hilly terrain, there is huge potential for development of helicopter services not only in the general aviation sector but also in various infrastructure projects underway in these areas, a veteran pilot today said.
"There is huge potential of the use of utility helicopters in the north-eastern states, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand region, which are mostly hilly and not easily accessible," Captain Patrick Fauchere, a veteran helicopter pilot with flying experience of over 20 years, said during a seminar organised here by Eurocopter.
Utility helicopters could be immensely useful in these states for carrying out various development projects especially in power and infrastructure sectors, he said, adding, it would help the development of areas inaccessible by other means of transport, thus saving time and money.
He said while a vast country like India has just 290 helicopters, in Europe, even a small country like Switzerland has more than 300 choppers.
28/10/10 PTI/MSN.com

Read More

New regulator wants say in airfare, disputes

New Delhi: If the Ministry of Civil Aviation has its way, the proposed regulatory authority for the sector will act as an arbitrator in case of disputes over airfare. The airlines, however, will be free to decide on ticket pricing.
The new Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) draft would enable the regulator to function as an arbitrator in case there are disputes on fares between consumers and airlines. The rules would also make it compulsory for airlines to provide the regulator with information on the procedures followed to fix the fares and the number of buckets or seats alloted under various fare tags, among others. It is also contemplating asking the airlines to issue waitlisted tickets to ensure passengers are not offloaded.
A senior civil aviation ministry official said the proposed powers would be vested with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) — the autonomus body which is proposed to supersede the current regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. CAA will be funded by a Rs 12 surcharge on every ticket.
“We do not want to regulate fares, but we are considering a proposal by which the authority will act as an arbitrator in case of disputes. Going forward, the airlines would be asked to hire an ombudsman or the government would act as one,” said the official, who did not want to be identified.
At present, fares are not regulated by any agency and are decided by market demand. Fares in different price range are kept under different buckets, with the lowest selling first and the highest selling last.
26/10/10 Mihir Mishra/Business Standard

Read More

Air fares set to climb 10% this festive season

New Delhi: All those who are planning air travel in the next four months might have to shell out more for their tickets as high demand caused by strong financial markets, festive season and good economic growth are expected to push up air fares.
"Only when the traffic is lower, do the airfares go down. It is that time of the year when in-bound tourism and personal travel increase. So, air tickets could get costlier by 5-10% between November and February," said Vimla Dorairaju, head, Mahindra Home Stays and Travel Services.
Traditionally, monsoon months of July-September are considered a lean period for air traffic. This is demonstrated by the fact that while September witnessed an 11% growth in traffic at 39.11 lakh domestic passengers compared to the same month last year, this was less than 40.38 lakh passengers in August. But with the festive season round the corner, demand for personal travel has increased substantially. In addition, strong financial markets will lead to more spending and, in turn, boost corporate travel, too.
26/10/10 Anindya Upadhyay/Times of India

Read More

Flighty schedules, stranded fliers

Mumbai: With airlines shuffling flight schedules at the last hour and failing to inform on time, commuters complain of being left at the airlines' mercy
If you have a flight to catch, do not be surprised if the airline reschedules it at the eleventh hour and forgets to inform you.
As MiD DAY found out, passengers are increasingly missing flights due to last minute changes in take-offs that weren't communicated to them.
The president of Air Passengers Association of India (APAI), Sudhakar Reddy, told MiD DAY that they receive hundreds of complaints every day about reschedules that passengers are not properly informed about. "We receive hundreds of complaints everyday about sudden reschedules.
This is happening because of the total failure of the DGCA in collusion with the airlines. The civil aviation ministry has not taken into consideration the suggestion or complaints of passengers or consumer bodies...''
26/10/10 Bipin Kumar Singh/MiD DAY

Read More

Airlines’ fate depends on debt-restructuring plan

Mumbai: As Indian air carriers are awaiting a debt restructuring process ahead of their respective fund raising programmes, industry experts say, even a marginal relaxation like resetting the rate of interest and extending the moratorium period will be beneficial to the industry, saddled with a collective debt of over Rs 60,000 crore.
However, on the flip side, if the restructuring does not happen, the risk will continue to negatively impact the balance sheets of airline operators.
The RBI has asked banks to work out a special concessional package for the crisis-ridden aviation sector, in response to which the lenders said they will look into the problems on a case-to-case basis. Most large banks have an exposure to national carrier Air India with around Rs 40,000 crore debt (which includes Rs 18,000 towards working capital and Rs 20,000 crore extended for aircraft purchase), Kingfisher Airlines (Rs 6,000 crore) and Jet Airways (Rs 14,000 crore).
Ravi Nedungadi, CFO, UB Group told FE, “We are working with a consortium of banks to restructure our debt but as of now, I cannot divulge any details until a final decision is arrived at.” Vijay Mallya, UB Group chairman, that runs Kingfisher Airlines had recently told shareholders that in the restructuring process, there will be an interest rate reduction to an average of 11%.
26/10/10 Shaheen Mansuri/Financial Express

Read More

Bird-hits: Deadline to phase out shotguns, crackers extended

New Delhi: The Civil Aviation Ministry and security agencies have decided to push the deadline to phase out shotguns and firecrackers deployed to scare birds at airports across the country to November 1. Failing to meet the July deadline earlier, some of the airports, including the private ones like the Delhi airport, had asked for an extension, and were allowed to continue using firecrackers.
In a review conducted recently by the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), it has been decided to ban firecrackers too and instead deploy alternate technologies at airport to shoo away birds. For this purpose, it has issued November as the new deadline as some of the airports had complained that they were not informed in time.
The issue of phasing out of firecrackers had assumed heightened importance after it was found that some of the firecrackers used at the Bangalore airport to scare birds, had escaped security check and found their way on board the Kingfisher Airlines's Bangalore-Thiruvananthapuram flight.
26/10/10 Smita Aggarwal/Indian Express

Read More

New aviation regulator to have more autonomy

New Delhi: The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which is proposed to supersede the current regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), will be financially autonomous and funded by a Rs 12 surcharge on every air ticket.
The civil aviation ministry is almost through with finalising the proposals. Putting the proposed authority in place should take uop to 24 months, say officials.
“It has been decided to give more financial and human resource autonomy to the CAA so that it can function like an independent regulator,” said a senior ministry official, who did not want to be identified. “Funding it directly by public money will make it more accountable to the people.”
DGCA lacks such autonomy. It is funded by the government and recruitments are done by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). An Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer heads it.
The head of the CAA will not necessarily be an IAS officer.
CAA is also likely to get autonomy in hiring, the official said.
25/10/10 Mihir Mishra/Business Standard

Read More

Measuring airline competition in India

How does the Competition Commission find out if domestic airlines are competing or colluding? Is it by the number of flights they operate or the fares they charge? After all, if they reduce the number of flights, the effect on costs and prices is the same as if they were to raise fares in collusion with each other. Output reduction may be the standard response to bad times but it is rarely done collusively.
However, whether that can be said for airlines is not altogether clear. India has far too few full-service airlines — and one of the three belongs to the Government.
Also, for some reason best known to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), it is virtually impossible to find out the exact number of flights operated. The Competition Commission should ask for this data to be reported on a regular basis. It is, after all, output data of the kind that every other producer reports.
The domestic aviation industry is planning to operate 10,300 weekly flights this winter. Last year the airlines had filed requests to operate almost 11,000 weekly flights.
In the summer they had reduced domestic weekly departures by around 400 flights, or about 4 per cent. The 10,609 weekly departures from March-end this year were the lowest flown by the industry since 2007 (10,624). This despite the fact that as per the domestic passenger data released by DGCA between January-September this year, domestic airlines carried 373.20 lakh passengers, against 314.85 lakh passengers in the corresponding period last year, registering a growth of 18.5 per cent.
25/10/10 Ashwini Phadnis/Business Line

Read More

Low-cost carriers may fly high this results season

Mumbai: Analysts feel most airlines’ Q2 results may just fall short of the mark as less passengers took to the skies in September. There’s a saving grace though. Low-cost carriers are seen to report better EBIDTA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) margins on the back of operational efficiencies.
According to statistics made available last week by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation , India’s airline regulator, airlines carried a total of 3.91 million passengers in September, up 11.58% from the same month last year, but down when compared to 4 million in August and 4.1 million in July for this year.
Experts expect low-cost carrier SpiceJet to post a 30% uptick in sales to Rs 547 crore during the second quarter despite a smaller fleet size. They, however, differ on profit figures. An aviation analyst with a brokerage firm said the airline will post a net profit of Rs 40 crore. But Rashesh Shah, aviation analyst at ICICIdirect.com, said the airline will incur a loss of about Rs 70 crore. Unlisted low-fare carrier IndiGo surprised many when it announced its results for 2010 with a net profit of more than Rs 500 crore.
Other listed carriers Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines are expected to be in the red because of seasonal factors. Jet's revenue growth is likely to be 18% year-on-year, down by 9% over the first quarter of this year.
Kingfisher Airlines is expected to suffer a loss of Rs 250 crore. The airline will see a growth of 16.8% year-on-year in revenues, down 22% from its first quarter revenues with estimated sales of Rs 1,333 crore for the second quarter, according to Mr Shah.
25/10/10 Manisha Singhal/Economic Times

Read More

Maoist whirr in chopper race

New Delhi: The counter-Naxalite drive often called Operation Green Hunt has resulted in a huge demand for helicopters that two global majors are vying to capture for the millions of dollars on offer.
The market for choppers has suddenly expanded with state and central police forces asking for more rotary-wing aircraft. There is a spurt in the demand because the Indian Air Force has told the Union home ministry it does not have enough to spare.
The Indian Air Force and the Indian Army are also in the middle of trials to buy hundreds of military helicopters. But global chopper-makers, Bell Textron and Eurocopter, are more enthused by the demand from the police forces because of the tardy process of military procurement.
Bell Textron is best known for the the UH-1 “Huey” – a legendary flying-machine that the US used in the war against the communist guerrillas (role models for the Naxalites) in Vietnam in the early 1970s – and was quicker off the blocks having sold its first helicopter in India nearly 53 years ago.
It has now sold more than 100 of different types of helicopters from its stable, increasingly to private and public sector companies. In 2009 alone, the company sold 22.
This week Eurocopter, part of the European aviation firm EADS, announced that it was setting up an Indian subsidiary. The company estimates that the Indian market will be worth nearly $ 140 million dollars in five years.
24/10/10 Sujan Dutta/The Telegraph

Read More

Haunted hotels, stinking cabs: Pilots' woes

Chennai: Pilots have to outmanoeuvre not just the tricky weather in air, but deal with unfriendly terra firma as well. Their woes on landing at a different station are endless.
“Bad cabs and hotel rooms are a pilot’s biggest despair in any station. A prominent hotel in Chennai has these really hollow walls so much so that an expatriate pilot complained that he could literally hear people having sex in the next room which didn’t allow him to sleep. He finally had to complain and the hotel authorities had a tough time moving the party to another room,” a popular domestic airline source said.
In another incident, the hotel’s laundry misplaced a pilot’s uniform, including his shirt, trousers, underwear and socks, delaying him for an early morning flight. The pilot complained helplessly as he was carrying no spare clothes.
An Air India pilot said a particular hotel in Dubai was said to have ‘ghosts’ in some rooms as it was built on a land that used to house a hospital.
Kingfisher Airlines’ pilots put up at a prominent hotel in Nungambakkam recently complained that in the process of demolishing the illegal front portion of the hotel, they tossed and turned in their bed all night owing to the constant battering.
24/10/10 Mamta Todi/ExpressBuzz

Read More

IBS to host global aviation conference in Dubai next week

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala-based travel and logistics software provider, IBS Software Services, is expecting to win more clients as passenger movements would be up by 7.5 per cent and cargo by 18.5 per cent this fiscal, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
IBS is hosting a a global airline meet, the IBS International Airline Forum, in Dubai from Oct 25-28. Over 120 senior officials of more than 35 airlines all over the world are expected to participate.
'We have won most of our deals in the recent past beating competitors like Unisys, SITA, Amadeus and Saber. With regards to Air India we were beaten by others because of our costs and we are confident very soon we will have them too in the near future,' Mathews told the media here Friday.
IBS products are sought after in the cargo segment and in the airline operations, part of which include the crew management solutions and airport management systems.
Their client list of IBS now includes Cathay Pacific, Qantas, South African, Qatar Airways, Emirates, Sri Lankan, Malaysian Airlines, Jet Blue (USA) All Nippon Airways (Japan), besides Indian clients like Jet Airways and Kingfisher.
22/10/10 IANS/Sify.com

Read More

Noise: IAF planes on radar

New Delhi: In the first ever move of its kind in India to mitigate noise pollution around an airport, the aviation ministry and DGCA have asked the defence ministry to avoid flying their old and extremely noisy military aircraft in and out of Delhi airport. At the same time realising the security requirements, the aviation authorities have suggested a practical alternate also by suggesting the movement of such aircraft be limited to runway 27 (that's closest to Dwarka side). Reason: Its approach path passes over the least number of residential colonies as compared to the final approach of other two runways and would hence disturb the least number of people.
Highly placed sources said this move is a direct fallout of residents living in colonies near IGI approaching the Delhi high court over the issue of noise from airport at night. The DGCA is already proposing to ban movement of noisy old aircraft that fall in chapter-II of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) like the Boeing 737-200 or the Russian IL-76 from IGI between 10pm and 6am from October 31. In India, Alliance Air and Blue Dart use the B 737-200 as cargo aircraft.
While ICAO Chapter-II rules apply to civil aircraft, residents have moved court against noise from movement of all kind of planes at night. Which means defence planes can't be excluded from the list of noise mitigation measures list being drawn up. That's why the aviation authorities have written to the defence ministry in the backdrop of the high court case.
22/10/10 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

Read More

I Am Ready for Change of Portfolio, Says Praful Patel

Nagpur: Union Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel tonight said he was ready for a change in his portfolio which he is holding since 2004.
"(Selection of Cabinet) is the prerogative of the Prime Minister but I am ready for change. In fact, I had requested the Prime Minister (for portfolio change) two years back but he insisted that I should continue with the current responsibility," the NCP leader told PTI here.
Patel, who is also President of All Indian Football Federation (AIFF), was here to inaugurate a soccer tournament. He had indicated yesterday at a function in New Delhi his desire to shift to another Ministry. His remarks came amid speculation that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may undertake a reshuffle of his Council of Ministers soon.
21/10/10 Outlook India

Read More

New aviation sector regulator in 2 years

New Delhi: India will have a more autonomous aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), in two years, said Nasim Zaidi, who heads the current regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
The aviation sector has seen substantial growth in recent years, leaving DGCA under pressure, particularly in the face of high attrition. Many employees have either retired or joined the better-paying private sector. Limited autonomy has made it tougher for DGCA to replace them quickly.
CAA will be have more autonomy. Faster decision-making will make it better-suited to regulate India’s aviation industry, Zaidi said on the sidelines of an air-traffic control conference on Thursday.
The change will be brought in through an Act of Parliament. “The time frame is 18 months to two years. It will need an Act to be passed,” Zaidi said. “There will be a person (to head CAA) who will combine at least two or three roles—chairman of the board, CEO (chief executive) and director general.”
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has recommended to India a model on the lines of aviation regulators in the US and the UK.
21/10/10 Tarun Shukla/Live Mint

Read More

Indian aviation gear makers set for takeoff

New Delhi: Indian companies producing aviation products could go global post the visit of the US President, Mr Barack Obama.
This follows indications that India and the US could ink the Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement (BASA) during the Presidential visit. This would lead to mutual acceptance of each others aeronautical products and parts developed in either country.
“An executive agreement is likely to be signed during the visit which could open a host of business opportunities for Indian aviation companies,” official sources told Business Line. Mr Obama is expected to begin his visit in the first week of next month.
A team from the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) was here in August for 15 days and visited facilities in Delhi and Bangalore to study certification procedures for engines, propellers and design of aircraft and components being produced here, sources said. The Indian authorities have already demonstrated to the FAA a life raft that can hold four people.
21/10/10 Ashwini Phadnis/Business Line

Read More