Focus on heritage for Delhi centenary

Travellers on flights to Delhi could be able to learn more about some of the city's grandest sites as it celebrates its 100th year as the capital of India.

People who visit the city are often impressed by the architecture but do not understand much about it, according to A G K Menon, convener of conservation group Intach's Delhi Chapter.

He told the Times of India architects Herbert Baker and Edwin Lutyens were behind many of the most iconic structures, but many people will not understand when they are told the city was influenced by the Garden city movement.

"We will have to tell people what the Garden city movement was and how it influenced the construction of New Delhi," Mr Menon added.

While the history of the city could be celebrated by people on flights to Delhi, many could also be impressed by the modern Metro system, which was named as best clean development at the Urban Mobility Conference 2011.

Fly to Dubai, Bangkok for Rs 10,000; IndiGo, Spice Jet to launch low cost flights

MUMBAI: If your holidays have been only about Coorg and Jaisalmer so far, now's the time to apply for a passport. The low-cost revolution that drastically brought down airfares on the domestic sector a few years ago is now set to play out on routes to west Asia and south-east Asia. Leading the pack are IndiGo and Spice Jet.

IndiGo will launch flights to Dubai and Bangkok from Mumbai and Delhi in September and to Muscat and Singapore in October. Spice Jet, which currently flies to Colombo and Kathmandu, will be launching flights to other destinations like west Asia and south-east Asia later this year.

The only low-cost carrier which connects Mumbai to south-east Asia is AirAsia, with its flights to Kuala Lumpur. For west-bound flights, Air India Express and Air Arabia offer low-cost connections to west Asia from Mumbai. With attractive launch fares and great deals on offer, even those who had no intention of travelling to these destinations are biting the bait, says Vijay Kesavan, CEO of ticket-booking site akbartravelsonline.

"IndiGo's return tickets from Mumbai or Delhi to Muscat or Singapore, which were priced at Rs 10,000, have sold out," he says. The competition has lowered fares on the Mumbai-Muscat route - this week, the cheapest one-way air ticket for August 30 was Rs 6,900 (taxes included), offered by Oman Air. IndiGo's fares for October are in the range of Rs 6,400, which beats Air Arabia's Mumbai-Sharjah-Muscat fare of Rs 7,800. The October fare to Singapore on IndiGo is Rs 8,500.

More flights to remote areas likely

The aviation ministry is planning to expand the scope of existing route dispersal guidelines for airlines that define a dozen key metro routes from the region according to air traffic

Indian carriers may be asked to increase connectivity to remote areas on the region inside a move that could raise prices for airlines even as it aims to evenly distribute the growth in domestic air traffic, which crossed the 52mn mark last year. The aviation ministry is planning to expand the scope of existing route dispersal guidelines for airlines that define a dozen key metro routes from the region according to air traffic. Airlines need to ply at least 10% of their total metro flights on routes covering destinations that are not well connected and are a smaller amount profitable, including Jammu and Kashmir, the North-East, Lakshadweep, and also the Andaman and Nicobar islands. "The targeted traffic has elevated more than the years and there is a situation for revising these metro routes. Kochi-Bangalore and Bangalore-Hyderabad are also at par in terms of targeted traffic now," mentioned a ministry official, who declined being named. "DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) is getting asked to appear into it and rework."

The regulator defines high-traffic metro routes currently as Mumbai-Bangalore, Kolkata-Delhi, Mumbai-Kolkata, Kolkata-Bangalore, Mumbai-Delhi, Kolkata-Chennai, Mumbai-Hyderabad, Delhi-Bangalore, Mumbai-Chennai, Delhi-Hyderabad, Mumbai-Thiruvananthapuram and Delhi-Chennai. If, for example, Kochi-Bangalore and Hyderabad-Bangalore are added to this list, the amount of flights that airlines ply on a smaller amount profitable routes will simultaneously increase. Civil aviation secretary Nasim Zaidi needs the definition being widened to cover such routes, the ministry official said. In 2009, DGCA had banned national airlines from buying seat-miles from so-called regional carriers to meet regulatory requirements, as Mint reported on 24 April. Wadia Group's low-fare carrier GoAir bought seats from Gurgaon-based MDLR Airlines Pvt. Ltd in 2008 after it was unable to meet route dispersal requirements as it was focused on just flying metro routes then.

Most national airlines including GoAir prefer these metro routes, which provide far better passenger targeted traffic and yields, besides helping to save prices as aircraft maintenance facilities require not be based at multiple airports. Any move to widen the metro route definition is likely to force all airlines to rework their schedules in line on the new guidelines, that are likely to come up for consultation soon. An official having a domestic carrier confirmed how the matter has been discussed with airlines, but called it illogical and against the recommendations on the Naresh Chandra panel report of 2003 over a aviation sector. The report, offered over a aviation ministry website, had advised that "route dispersal guidelines need to be abolished" and airlines need to be allowed to assistance the routes of their choice, according to commercial considerations.

It had also advised that "the federal government need to provide explicit subsidy support-preferably from the general exchequer and supplemented by a sector-specific cess of 5% on airfare and proceeds from the privatization of airports-for providing essential, but uneconomical services, and award it via a method of minimum subsidy bidding". The creation of a non-lapsable important air services fund was an ideal solution for this, it said. None of these recommendations had been employed so far. "Where there is no demand on Kolkata-Silchar, they want you to put jumbos. You happen to be forcing the industry being sick," mentioned the airline official. You'll find other constraints at such low-traffic destinations, he said. In Srinagar, for example, wherever the amount of daily flights have elevated drastically through the years, this official pointed offered are no night-landing facilities, leaving tiny scope for more flights to consume off or state following sunset.
Source: India Infoline

Flight from Delhi cancelled, several others delayed

LUCKNOW: Dense fog enveloping the Amausi airport continued to disrupt flight movement on Saturday. Even though one domestic flight from Delhi remained cancelled, an international flight from Dubai was diverted to Jaipur.

According to reports, a GoAir flight, G8 351 with a scheduled arrival at 6.30 am remained cancelled. A Jet Airways Konnect flight 9W 2637 with a scheduled arrival at 6.45 am arrived virtually seven hours late even as visibility problems plummeted to near zero. The flight from Delhi arrived at 1.50 pm and departed only by 2.37 pm.

Likewise, a Kingfisher flights with a scheduled arrival at 8.30 am arrived at 12.30 pm and departed at 12.54. One more Kingfisher flight IT 3169 from Mumbai to Lucknow with a scheduled arrival at 8.55 am arrived only by 11.50 am.

Meanwhile, a Fly Dubai flight was diverted to Jaipur. The flight was scheduled to arrive at Amausi airport at around 7.45 am. However, the flight was diverted to Jaipur. The flight finally landed at Amausi airport at 3.40 pm and went back to Dubai at 7.30 pm.

Airport officials stated that even though visibility situation eased from the afternoon, it was back to haunt flight movement late on Saturday evening. In fact, some of the flights which have been scheduled to arrive in late evening had already started arriving late.

SpiceJet Aims for International Operations Breakeven in 2 Months

Low-fare airline SpiceJet is seeking at over 80% load factor (which means over 8 out of 10 seats on a flight becoming full) inside first month of beginning daily flights between Delhi-Kathmandu including a breakeven of international operations inside first two months.

The airline’s first international flight, between Delhi and Kathmandu, took off on October 7 as well as the daily Mumbai leg is slated to start in March.

SpiceJet’s optimism on load reasons is remarkable, because there are already seven flights a day between the Capital and Kathmandu by carriers including Jet Airways, JetLite, Air India, Kingfisher and Nepal Airlines. Chief Commercial Officer Samyukth Sridharan claimed inside a chat with DNA that SpiceJet will likely be offering the lowest fares on this sector.

“Being a low-cost carrier, we will remain focused on providing the best prices to customers. We have accessible tickets at nearly half the existing cost on Kathmandu and Colombo,” he said.

Sridharan mentioned that SAARC is really a hugely underserved market, particularly by low fare airlines. Even though domestically, 7 out of 10 fliers board low fare carriers, only three in 10 do so on international routes because of the absence of low fare options.

Obviously Saarc is really a large visitors driver for this sort of airlines now.
SpiceJet is offering 1 way ticket to Kathmandu for as smaller as Rs 3,453 (all inclusive) versus an average fare of Rs 5,500-6,000 on other carriers. But travel agents factor out that aggressive pricing will, in all likelihood, be phased out gradually and an all-out fare war on a Delhi-Kathmandu sector was unlikely.

“Legacy carriers may well improve their fares somewhat to attract fliers but a extended word fare war seems unlikely for now...this is aggressive very first pricing,” TAAI president Rajji Rai said.

Meanwhile, Sridharan mentioned that SpiceJet Booking plans to operate up to seven daily flights every to Kathmandu and Colombo inside next six months since it seems to connect more Indian cities to Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Besides, the airline plans also to start flights to Dhaka and Male within a year. SpiceJet will be the first Indian low fare carrier to fly internationally with from New Delhi flights to Kathmandu and from Chennai to Colombo.

Besides the Delhi-Kathmandu service, a daily Chennai-Colombo return flight was inaugurated on October 9.

Now, the airline can also be thinking connections from Kathmandu and Colombo to Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Bangalore for later.

Source: DNA India