Jet Airways offers 50% discounted fares for limited period

Jet Airways, India’s premier international airline, and Jet Airways Konnect, Jet Airways’ all economy no-frills service, will offer a promotional fare that reflects a 50% discount on its total fare in Economy class across all domestic flights. With limited seats under this offer, the sale of these special fares will be between September 14 and September 16, 2009. Travel needs to be completed by September 18, 2009. These bookings can be made through any travel agent, our call centre or on www.jetairways.com. JetPrivilege members will earn 1000 Bonus JPMiles for all bookings made on jetairways.com during the offer period. According to Mr. Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, CEO, Jet Airways, "With these new low, limited-time fares, we hope to welcome travellers back aboard Jet Airways' and Jet Airways Konnect's extensive domestic services, which cover the length and breadth of the country between them."

Jet Airways to go low cost soon

In one months’ time, Jet Airways is scheduled to morph into a largely no-frills airline with over two thirds of its seating capacity on its 86 planes transferred to a new service called Jet Konnect. The Rs 11,450-crore airline is hoping that the makeover will change its fortunes after racking up a post-tax loss of Rs 225 crore on its domestic and overseas operations in the first quarter ended June 30. The Jet Konnect service was introduced in May with nine of the airline’s 48 Boeing 737s the workhorse in the Jet fleet and 10 ATR planes and accounted for one-third of the airline’s seating capacity. By October, the airline plans to have 16 B-737s and 10 ATRs operating under the Jet Konnect service which effectively means two-thirds of the airline will be a no-frills service.

As part of the changeover, Jet has been ripping out the business class seats from its planes and moving to a single class configuration, thereby raising the seating capacity on these planes by 20 to 25 per cent. Jet has 33,000 seats on offer every day on its domestic flights which will go up to 38,000 seats once all the 16 B-737s convert to a single configuration for the Jet Konnect service. It isn’t only the full service airline that has started concentrating on low-yield passengers. Air India is also looking to enter aggressively into this space which means loads of competition for budget carriers such as IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir.

Air India' reschedules Thiruvananthapuram-Mumbai flight timing

Air India has rescheduled the flight between Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai to provide convenient connections to international passengers taking onward journey from Mumbai. Flight IC-162, which is now departing at 6.45 pm has been rescheduled to depart at 5.20 pm. The flight, which departs from Thiruvananthapuram at 5.20 pm will reach Kochi at 6.05 pm. It will depart from Kochi at 6.45 pm and will arrive Mumbai at 8.40 pm.

India Post Cargo all set to start flying

The Minister for Civil Aviation, Mr Praful Patel, and the Minister for Communications and Information and Technology, Mr A. Raja, are together making an Indian dream come true, parcels being delivered any where in the country within 24 hours of posting. This will happen with the official launch in Chennai on Sunday of India Post’s country-wide services using Air India Cargo aircraft. India Post has been given Air India Cargo’s three Boeing 737-200 aircraft of the 1970s vintage to cover the North-East. The three planes, which earlier used to fly for Alliance Air, can together carry 40 tonnes of mail which will be sorted at the hub in Nagpur before being airlifted on an AI cargo freighter to the airport closest to the ultimate destination of a parcel. Mr Patel and Mr Raja hope that with this move, India Post will be able to take on the global express industry players (DHL, TNT, UPS and FedEx) that are seeking to expand in India.

Singapore Airlines & Air India sign frequent flier partnership

Air India and Singapore Airlines have signed a bilateral agreement that would enable passengers of either carrier to earn and redeem miles on flights operated by the other. Under the new agreement, effective from tomorrow, frequent flyers on Singapore Airlines and Air India would be able to earn and redeem miles on flights operated by either carrier. The agreement comes in the wake of efforts by the national carrier to fulfil the conditions of joining the Star Alliance, of which SIA is a founder member. Air India has already been invited to join the global alliance, which was formed in 1997 and has a membership of 26. The agreement means that members of SIA's KrisFlyer programme would be able to earn KrisFlyer miles when they fly with Air India, or choose to redeem their miles for flights with the Indian carrier, an SIA statement said.

Likewise, members of Air India's Flying Returns programme would enjoy greater choice by having the option of using their miles on the Singaporean carrier or earning miles when they fly on it, it said. "Singapore Airlines is pleased to welcome Air India on board. The addition of Air India as a KrisFlyer partner boosts the number of carriers we have such agreements with to 28. "Those who fly frequently with Singapore Airlines and Air India now have more opportunity to increase their frequent flyer miles, and more choice in deciding how best to use their miles," Huang Cheng Eng, Singapore Airlines' Executive Vice President Marketing and the Regions, said. SIA operates 42 times a week to six destinations in India. With the inclusion of subsidiary carrier SilkAir, the Singapore Airlines route network covers 93 destinations in 38 countries.