Indian carriers chart strategy for lean season

India’s domestic carriers, struggling with mounting losses amid a fare war unleashed by Air India Ltd, met in Mumbai on Monday to decide on a strategy to shore up revenue and widen margins in a move that’s being watched by the aviation ministry.

“They want to hike base fares,” said one of three airline officials with direct knowledge of the meeting and what was discussed. All of them declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The post-lunch meeting, which was called at short notice, was held at Mumbai’s Waterstones Club, close to the international airport.

Representatives from state-owned Air India and budget carrier IndiGo, run by InterGlobe General Aviation Pvt. Ltd, didn’t attend.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the industry regulator, said it would investigate any efforts at cartelization, but was not aware of any such activity.

“We are watching the price scene situation very closely. There is a fare-monitoring unit in DGCA,” said director general Bharat Bhushan, who has been leading a campaign to root out pilots who’ve got their jobs with the help of forged documents. “So far we haven’t seen fares change.”

Those who attended the meeting included Jet Airways​ (India) Ltd executive vice-president Anita Goyal, Kingfisher Airlines Ltd chief executive officer (CEO) Sanjay Aggarwal, SpiceJet Ltd CEO Neil Mills and GoAir CEO Giorgio De Roni.

SpiceJet’s Mills declined to offer any comment. Email and calls to the Jet Airways’ spokesperson remained unanswered.

Kingfisher’s Aggarwal and GoAir’s De Roni didn’t reply to emailed questions.

The meeting came at the start of the two-week period considered the leanest of the year with many Indians avoiding travel because of religious sentiments, according to one of the officials cited above.

“It’s going to put a lot of pressure on the October-December quarter,” this official said, following the losses posted by all three listed airlines in the April-June period, traditionally considered the second best by way of profitability.

Jet Airways, along with its subsidiary JetLite, made a loss of Rs.128.36 crore, Kingfisher Rs.263.54 crore and SpiceJet Rs.71.96 crore in the first quarter of this fiscal compared with profits for Jet and SpiceJet year-on-year (y-o-y).

The current quarter is expected to be worse and it won’t get much better for the full fiscal, said an analyst.

“Q2 (second quarter) is going to be a disaster,” said Kapil Kaul, South Asia CEO of Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. “There is a negative sentiment about the airline industry. And Q2 would further increase the downward bias. All the stocks will be serious underperformers. In this year, everyone will lose.”
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IndiGo loses Muscat rights to Air India

The government has withdrawn some of the overseas flying rights granted to IndiGo, run by InterGlobe General Aviation Pvt. Ltd, and handed them to state-owned Air India Ltd, according to two government officials who did not want to be named.

“This is the first time it has ever happened,” said one of the two officials, referring to the clause under the air services agreement that allows Air India to prevent the allocation of rights to another Indian carrier. “Generally, the number of seats available in any bilateral are always surplus. In this case, the number of seats for Oman were falling short. And Air India wanted to start flights, so the rights (to IndiGo) had to be curtailed.”

The second official confirmed the move. It was communicated to the airline in June.

The move will mean that the country’s biggest low-fare carrier, which has a 19.6% share of the domestic market, will only be able to fly four times a week to Muscat instead of all seven days as per the original sanction.

IndiGo, which has 42 Airbus SAS 320 planes, will start overseas services in September with flights to Bangkok, Dubai and Singapore. It hasn’t announced its schedule for flights to the capital of Oman.

The rights to fly daily to Muscat from Delhi and Mumbai had been granted in January by the then civil aviation minister Praful Patel​, who moved on to the heavy industries portfolio on 19 January 2011. With another 12 A320s to be added to its fleet this fiscal, IndiGo Air plans to launch several more overseas flights to West and South-East Asia. But a freeze by the civil aviation ministry on approvals for fresh foreign rights may stall that plan.
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DGCA orders review of 4,000 pilot licences

The back-to-back arrests of an IndiGo and an Air India pilot for forging mark sheets to become eligible for ones career has prompted Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to order review of 4,000 licences, specially those people issued inside past one year.

Air India’s JK Verma was arrested by Delhi Police on Saturday for allegedly with a forged mark sheet to procure the mandatory airline transport pilot’s licence, while Parminder Kaur Gulati, 38, of IndiGo Airlines was suspended following a hard landing and arrested on March 8 in your similar offence.

“We have received complaints against a couple of more pilots — Meenakshi Sehgal of IndiGo and Swaran Singh Talwar of MDLR [both are absconding],” commissioner of police (crime branch) Ashok Chand said on Monday.

“Gulati’s landing procedure had some deficiencies. As soon as I took a contemplate her record, it was a shock that she had obtained her licence on the basis of mark sheets which were not authenticated,” director general of civil aviation EK Bharat Bhushan said.

“Suspecting the same in some other records, DGCA undertook a detailed investigation. So far, there were four cases and a couple of were apprehended,” he said.

The problem has arrive up even as the government searches in your replacement for Bhushan.

Not willing to eat chances, specially mainly because DGCA issues all pilot licences and is in-charge of regulatory issues pertaining to aviation safety, efficiency, and continuity of air transport, such as formulation of air law framework, the government released an advertisement last week generating it mandatory for all aspirants to submit “integrity certificates” and statements of minor or major penalties imposed on them inside preceding decade.

All applications must be submitted within 45 days with the release with the ad.

Apart from integrity certificates, the stress this time is on recruiting a professional. During the past, mostly bureaucrats have headed this crucial office. As per the advertisement, an applicant must have about 12 years experience in aviation, flying, aircraft, engineering or airworthiness.

Of these, minimum five years must were spent in administration and finance disciplines at senior management levels. Possibly, a lesson inside recent chief vigilance commissioner episode that caused the government major embarrassment?
Source: DNA India

Indigo Airline woman pilot held for faking documents for licence

NEW DELHI: An Indigo Airline woman pilot was arrested for obtaining a pilot's license on forged documents, police said on Wednesday.

"Parminder Kaur Gulati, 38, was held from her residence at Kirti Nagar area in West Delhi Tuesday," said deputy commissioner of police Ashok Chand.

Director of training & licensing of civil aviation department DC Sharma filed a complaint that Gulati had obtained an airlines transport pilot license (ALTP) on forged document.

The complaint came after Gulati was grounded following an incident of hard landing of Indigo Flight-6E-332 at Goa Jan 11. Director general of civil aviation (DGCA) has set up its own enquiry panel.

"They found that she had submitted forged result card of pilot license examination," said the officer.

"She had failed in air navigation paper and was absent in the paper of radio aids and instruments in January 2009. She again appeared in April and July 2009 sessions, but failed both the time," said Chand.

She submitted forged result card of passing air navigation and radio aids & instruments to DGCA April 11, 2009 and on November 16, 2009 she was issued an ATPL.

Gulati completed her bachelor of science from Khalsa College of Delhi University in 1995. In 1997, she got private pilot license from Delhi Flying Club and she then her commercial pilot license from the same club in 1998.

In May, 2006, she joined Air Deccan as co-pilot and in November, 2007 she joined Indigo Airlines as co-pilot.

"After getting ALTP in November 2009 on forged document, she became a captain in GoIndigo Airline," said Chand.

Source: Times of India

Airlines owe Rs 1,122 crore to AAI

Airlines operating within the country owe Rs 1,122 crore to Airports Authority of India, Lok Sabha was informed today.

The dues of Airports Authority of India (AAI) against Air India as on January 31, 2011 are Rs 720 crore, Minister of Civil Aviation Vayalar Ravi mentioned inside a written reply.

For Kingfisher, the figure is Rs 257.62 crore, Go Airlines - Rs 6.77 crore, Interglobe Aviation Ltd. (Indigo)- Rs 13.29 crore, Jet Airways - Rs 38.49 crore, Jet Lite (India) Ltd Rs 13.96 crore, Spicejet Ltd - Rs 16.99 crore and Paramount Airways - Rs 4.88 crore.

For others modest or non-operating airlines the dues stand at 50.13 crore.

He mentioned the matter of pending dues is taken up by the AAI with respective airlines from time to time .

The Minister mentioned steps have been taken to increase the facilities at the airports which include modernisation of Chennai and Kolkata Airports, development of 35 non-metro airports of the terminal buildings having state-of-the-art passenger facilities, user friendly amenities, very good ambiance and satellite based navigation system.

Kingfisher regains No.2 spot...IndiGo ahead of AI

Indigo Airlines has gone ahead of Air India by carrying 1.71 lakh more domestic passengers than the national carrier in January this year.

Vijay Mallya-controlled Kingfisher Airlines has regained the no 2 position as compared to its competitors IndiGo Airlines and Air India. Jet Airways along with its budget arm Jetlite continues to be at the top

Indigo Airlines has gone ahead of Air India by carrying 1.71 lakh more domestic passengers than the national carrier in January this year.

The total domestic passengers carried by the Scheduled Airlines of India in January, 2011 were 49.36 lakhs. It may be recalled that the total domestic passengers carried by the Scheduled Airlines of India in December, 2010 were 52.13 lakhs.

The break-up for the month of January, 2011 is as follows:

Air India (Domestic) – 7.79 lakhs, Jet Airways –8.54 lakhs, Jet Lite – 3.72 lakhs, Kingfisher – 9.61 lakhs, Spice Jet – 7.05 lakhs, Go Air – 3.15 lakhs, IndiGo – 9.50 lakhs.

The percentage share of the carriers in the month of January, 2011 is as follows:

Air India (Domestic) – 15.8%, Jet Airways – 17.3%, Jet Lite – 7.5%, Kingfisher – 19.5%, Spice Jet–14.3%, Go Air – 6.4 % and IndiGo – 19.2%.

The seat factor of the domestic airlines in the month of January, 2011 was:

Air India (Domestic) – 69.3%, Jet Airways – 73.9%, JetLite – 74.6%, Kingfisher Airlines – 86.5%, Spice Jet – 82.6%, Go Air –83.3% and IndiGo – 88.6%.