Jet Airways launches Mumbai-Jeddah flight

Jet Airways, India’s premier international airline, today launched its services to Saudi Arabia with the introduction of its daily service from Mumbai to Jeddah. The airline marked the occasion with the customary inaugural ceremony at the Mumbai International Airport. Jet Airways will operate its maiden flight on the sector aboard a state-of-the-art Boeing 737-800 aircraft. Flight 9W 522 will depart Mumbai at 2135 hrs, and will arrive in Jeddah at 0001 hrs. Flight 9W 521 will depart Jeddah at 0100 hrs, and will arrive in Mumbai at 0835 hrs. With the introduction of its services to Saudi Arabia, Jet Airways now flies to 7 cities in the Gulf, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Muscat, Doha, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Jeddah.

Jeddah is Saudi Arabia’s second largest city, as well as a commercial hub. It also holds great religious significance, as the principal gateway to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. According to Mr. Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, CEO, Jet Airways, “Jet Airways is delighted to introduce its services to Saudi Arabia. Guests on these sectors may now enjoy the quality in-flight product, warm service and seamless connectivity that has made Jet Airways the carrier of choice on the competitive Indo-Gulf sector in a relatively short span of time.” Jet Airways will also launch a new, daily service to Dubai from Hyderabad, its fifth daily service to the Gulf emirate and second from Southern India; as well as its second daily service to Bangkok from Mumbai, effective August 16, 2009.

Air India flight makes emergency landing at Kochi

An Air India aircraft with crew and seven passengers on board today made an emergency landing at the Kochi airport due to technical snag, airport sources said. The aircraft bound for Agatti in Lakshadweep Islands returned for an emergency landing at Kochi airport after flying for more than 90 minutes.The pilot of the Dornier aircraft, Flight IC 502, noticed a snag after it took off in the morning and alerted the Air Traffic Control (ATC) to make arrangements for an emergency landing, the sources said. The ATC instructed airport officials to introduce local standby system to provide for emergency landing. The plane landed safely. The flight was subsequently cancelled, the sources added.

Jet Airways introduces early purchase apex fares

Jet Airways, India’s premier international airline, its new all-economy service Jet Airways Konnect, and Jet Airways’ all-economy subsidiary, JetLite, have introduced special 5-day base apex fares between INR 150-900 on several key routes across India. These special fares are applicable only on flights departing between 1230 hrs to 1630 hrs and 2030 hrs to 0700 hrs on sectors indicated below, and are available for sale with immediate effect from 13th July 2009 to 27th July 2009. Travel on these fares is however is open till 31st March 2010.

Jet Airways, Jet Airways Konnect and JetLite offer a special base fare of INR 150 on routes including the Srinagar-Jammu, Guwahati-Imphal, Bhubaneshwar-Kolkata, Delhi-Lucknow, Indore-Mumbai, Kochi-Hyderabad, Kolkata-Dibrugarh and Mumbai-Raipur sectors, among others. On routes including the Mumbai-Chennai, Delhi-Mumbai/Pune, Kolkata-Hyderabad, Hyderabad-Delhi and Delhi-Kolkata sectors, the airlines offer a special base of INR 400*. On the Guwahati-Delhi, Mumbai-Kolkata, Bengaluru/Chennai-Delhi and Delhi-Kochi sector, the airline will offer a special base fare of INR 900.

Jet Airways Konnect may fly international routes

Jet Airways Konnect, the two- month old no-frill carrier floated by the premier private airline Jet Airways, is evaluating routes to launch overseas services by the year-end, a top airline official said. "We are evaluating a few routes and if we decide to go ahead, it will all be within this year," Jet Airways Chief Commercial Officer Sudheer Raghavan said, indicating that these services could be launched from the upcoming winter schedule beginning October. He refused to disclose which international routes Jet Konnect was interested in but said the evaluation was being carried out on sectors in which all-economy, no-frill services would be feasible. Regarding Jet Airways, Raghavan said the legacy airline, which started its services to Saudi Arabia with the launch of Mumbai-Jeddah flight two days ago, would start flying to Riyadh from August six.

Asked whether Jet would stop flying to those foreign destinations where Jet Konnect goes, he said "all options" were being studied, including whether meals, which has to be bought on board its domestic service, should be served on its proposed international flights. He, however, maintained that "we don't want to do away with the warmth of our premier service" and the prime difference would be the all-economy configuration of the aircraft. Jet Konnect, which was launched on May 7, would have a fleet of 10 turbo-prop ATR 72-500 aircraft and nine Boeing 737s, most of them being 168 seaters, by July end. The Jet CCO, however, made it clear that in no way would the airline cut its domestic operations to start services on some profitable international routes. By October this year, Jet Konnect would begin operating on all routes it has planned to take over from its full service parent airline, he said.

Jet Konnect was floated with planes and routes earlier operated by Jet Airways, which, as a full service airline, was experiencing high operational costs and low yields. The two-class configured planes of Jet were converted into all-economy seaters to begin Jet Konnect operations which were "breaking even" with food being sold on board and less number of cabin crew members on these flights, he said.Within a span of two months, number of destinations operated by Jet Konnect grew enormously, roughly accounting for half of the full-service carrier's operations, Raghavan said. Konnect now operates 129 flights a day compared with about 270 of Jet Airways. By October this year, another about 30 domestic flights would be added to the Jet Konnect network, he said. Domestic passenger load of Jet Airways on several sectors, which were averaging 50-55 per cent, increased to over 70 per cent when these services were switched over to that of Jet Konnect, Raghavan said.

Kingfisher Airlines to launch new international routes

Expanding its global network, Kingfisher Airlines on Saturday announced the launch of flights on eight international routes before the year end. It also announced suspension of its services on Bangalore-London and Bangalore-Colombo routes from September 15, while launching two new flights on Mumbai-Singapore and Mumbai-Hong Kong sectors from the next day. Both these new flights would be daily direct return services and operated by new Airbus A330-200 aircraft, an airline spokesperson said, adding that the bookings for travel on these two sectors would be opened shortly. From the winter schedule, which begins in October end, the Vijay Mallya-promoted premier carrier would start operating on six more international routes, subject to approval by the Civil Aviation Ministry. The routes are Delhi-London Heathrow, Delhi-Bangkok, Delhi-Dubai, Mumbai-Bangkok, Mumbai-Dubai and Mumbai-Colombo. These would be the first international flights the airline would launch out of Delhi.

Air Arabia offers special promotion to Sharjah

Air Arabia, a low-cost carrier (LCC) in West Asia and North Africa, has launched a special promotion scheme that offers round-trip tickets to Sharjah, UAE from any of the 13 destinations in India for Rs 12,999 (inclusive of surcharge and exclusive of airport taxes). The offer, which is valid for travel to Sharjah till July 31 and from Sharjah between July 16 and September 10, also includes a one-month UAE tourist visa from the date of entry subject to approval from the General Directorate for Naturalization and Residence. Currently, Air Arabia operates direct flights from Sharjah to Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Kochi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Nagpur, Coimbatore, Thiruvanthapuram, Kozhikode, Delhi and Goa.

Air India Express to start domestic flights

Realising that only a budget-airline model can ensure better passenger load factor these days, cash-strapped Air India has decided to begin low-cost domestic operations from September to tap the peak October-December travel season. The airline will launch these flights under the existing brand of Air India Express that at present flies to global destinations. "The premium class market has all but vanished. Domestic full service carriers have massive overcapacities and yields have dropped by 40%," said highly placed sources. While full fare carriers barely manage about 70% loads despite cutting capacity, LCCs (low-cost carriers) report over 80% occupancies.

Since LCC success largely depends on online sales, Air India is aiming to revamp its online booking engine by August end so that a user-friendly system is in place before the launch. It's also going to tweak its frequent flyer programme. Air India was the only full service airline that did not have a domestic LCC in its fold. On the other hand, both Jet and Kingfisher have shifted their planes from full service to their LCC arms on domestic and international routes. Launching the LCC is part of Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav's revamp plan for the airline. Jadhav, who puts in almost 16 hours a day charting the survival and revival strategy for Air India has set two targets increase revenue and lower costs. AI is getting an audit of its inventories done. According to sources, it is aiming to raise up to Rs 1,000 crore from sale of some inventories.