Air Canada returns to New Delhi effective November’15

In an unexpected announcement, Air Canada (IATA code AC) announced resumption of services to New Delhi (IATA code: DEL) beginning November’15. (Winter Schedule-2015). The flights will be operated by B787 Dreamliner aircraft, and the press release claims this will be the first route with the longer range B787-9, which will operate on two of three weekly services proposed by the airline.

The airline will operate this non-stop service four times a week,

Flight	From	To	Depart	Arrive	Days of the week
AC050	Toronto	Delhi	20:55	21:15 (+ 1 day)	Monday*, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday
AC051	Delhi	Toronto	00:45	05:00	Tuesday, Wednesday*,Thursday, Sunday

Departure from Toronto on Monday & from Delhi on Wednesday will be operated by B787-800.

Historic and current links to Canada

While Air India operated Amritsar – Delhi – Toronto flight, the same was pulled out owning to heavy losses in May’12. Air Canada also,in the past operated flights on the Toronto – Delhi sector. Both the airlines had flown this route with the B777 variants and Air Canada will benefit from the favorable economics of the B787 over the B777.

Currently only Jet Airways operates a flight to Toronto, via its hub at Brussels from Delhi, with connections from Mumbai.  With talks of Jet Airways shifting its hub from Brussels to Amsterdam or to Abu Dhabi, the future of flights to Toronto would be in question.

B787 – Dreamliner

The aircraft has its share of problems across the globe, including with Indian national carrier Air India. While Air India has two class configurations, Air Canada has configured its Dreamliner’s (B787-800 variant) in three class configurations with 20 Business, 21 Premium Economy and 210 Economy class seats. The Star Alliance member is yet to reveal the configurations of its longer B787-900 variant.  

While the B787-900 will have wingspan and fuselage same as those of the -800 variant, it is expected to be longer by 6 meters and higher Maximum Take Off Weight (MTOW), with a range of 15372km, compared to 14500km of the smaller B787-800 variant.

Delhi Hub & Connectivity

Not long ago, Star Alliance had made intentions clear about having a hub at Delhi along with Mumbai. Clearly the entry of Air India in Star Alliance is helping Delhi develop itself as a hub, along with attracting global traffic.

As per existing schedules of Air India, the inbound flight would connect to multiple destinations

Inbound
Connection Time	Destination
1 - 3 hours	Mumbai(AI), HongKong(AI), Bangkok(TG)
3 - 6 hours
6 - 9 hours	Ahmedabad(AI), Lucknow(AI), Pune(AI)
9+ hours	Khatmandu(AI), Hyderabad(AI), Chennai(AI), Kolkata(AI), Kochi(AI)

Outbound
Connection Time	Destination
1 - 3 hours	Chennai(AI), Mumbai(AI), Ahmedabad(AI), Kochi(AI), Kolkata(AI), Bangkok(TG)
3 - 6 hours	Singapore(SQ), Pune(AI), Hongkong(AI), Lucknow(AI)
6 - 9 hours
9+ hours

Re-timings would help Air Canada connect both ways to Singapore on Singapore Airlines, while it would already connect to Bangkok on Thai Airways – both Star Alliance members.

Concerns

While this new link is a welcome move, the traffic between Canada & India has remained stagnant for a while. The traffic patterns are mainly seasonal and there are ample options available via Europe, Middle East & the USA.

Resistance of Canadian government to grant more rights to Middle Eastern carriers and requirement of US visa for transit would benefit this non-stop service of Air Canada. 

Jet Airways shift to Full Service, how are the Jetlite flights being managed?

On 11^th August in a joint press conference with Etihad, Naresh Goyal, Chairman of Jet Airways announced the shift to a Full service model. Vistara, the yet to fly full service carrier, a joint venture of Singapore airlines & TATA group and Air India, after its entry into Star Alliance was considered tough competition in the full service space.

The mixed model

As Kingfisher Airlines bought Air Deccan to have presence in growing Low cost segment, Jet Airways bought Air Sahara, then a full service carrier and converted it to Jetlite, a low cost arm of the parent. All the CRJ-200s were retired, the airline pulled out of few sectors and others were converted to ATR flights, which were operated by Jet Airways. Later, a new segment came up, flights which would be called Jet Konnect, which was low cost offering of the mainline. Many aircraft saw decals of “Konnect”, over Jet Airways titles on the fuselage and these were to operate on Tier-II routes. However, as expected, the aircraft flew all across leading to confusion in minds of passengers.

Soon there were rotations, where flights went from Origin to Destination as Full service and returned as Low Cost, carrying food to be given out in the first leg and on return, the crew would sell on board!

First Blink

What options did one have on the service front?

• Aircraft – Jet Airways metal
• Business Class & Economy Class Full service
• Business Class & Economy Class – Buy on Board (BoB) in Konnect

•           Aircraft – Jetlite (Ex- Air Sahara aircraft)
•          Business Class & Economy Class – Buy on Board (BoB)Business

As this confusion started affecting the airline, first of many changes were made. This included having premium cabin being served complimentary food, across Jet Airways, Jet Airways Konnect & Jetlite.

The second change involved doing away with Jetlite and having two offerings, Jet Airways & Jet Airways Konnect. This also was confusing for the travelers, because the aircraft operating under Air Operators Permit (AOP) of Jetlite continue to have the light blue livery with Jetlite prominently written on the fuselage.

Just before the shift

Jet Airways was in news for planning to shift ATR fleet to Jetlite and also its plan to shift pilots creating road blocks, issues related to seniority and much more!

Thankfully, common sense prevailed and Jet Airways decided to make a move to Full service offering. The now defunct Kingfisher Airlines, had made a similar statement but it was too late in the survival cycle for them to invest, change and make the move. The airline shifted to what they called a holding pattern and later stopped operations, much before they could complete re-configuration of their aircraft and shift to a full service model.

Code share

With court cases, ruling out a merger between Jet & Jetlite, the airline resorted to code share, a common practice globally, but unique in this case since it is between the airline & its subsidiary. It involves each airline publish and market the flight under its own airline designator and flight number. Seat can be purchased on either of it but the flight is operated by only one, known as operating carrier.

The seat and revenue sharing could be done in multiple ways

•        Set number of seats are given by the operating airline to its code share partner and the partner airline maintains a separate inventory and sells it. The operating airline gets a fixed cost for sold/ unsold seats

•        No restriction on seats, where in both airlines open up all seats for sale. There could well be a cap on maximum seats sold under this arrangement

Code share between Jet Airways & Jetlite did have issues for the passengers, since until recently the passengers booked on 9W code with operating carrier being Jetlite were not able to do a web check-in!

Move to Full service

The move to full service on 1^st December was a silent affair. An email to frequent fliers, statement on social media and the website jetkonnect.com directing users to jetairways.com was all that happened, along with meals being served on all flights, irrespective of which aircraft the flight was being flown on – Jet airways Boeing, Jetlite boeing or Jet Airways ATR.

However, due to legal disputes, the Jetlite AOP (S2 code) continues to be in operation and there are 4 x B737-700, 5 x B737-800 and 1 x B737-900 which are part of Jetlite AOP and remain in operation. Amongst them, they operate 564 flights a week. As part of this move to full service, the passenger would get complimentary food in these flights, but how is Jet Airways managing the Flight numbers, Inventory and trying to be seen as one airline ?

Complex or Simple – Code share to the rescue

Prima Facie, this is how Jet Airways seems to be managing the move. The airline had said it will throw more light on this before the move, but hardly did it give out the details of the move. The answer to how Jet Airways is managing two Air Operating Permits lies in Code Share.

Readers would recollect how an online booking engine would show flights under 9W code (9W 7xxx) and S2 code when they would search for flights on some sectors where both were operating (Eg: Mumbai – Bhopal – Mumbai or Delhi – Chandigarh – Delhi). The flight times would be same, but there would be marginal fare difference owing to how code share is handled).

After the move on 1^st December, entire inventory will be managed by Jet airways code (9W 7xxx) and inventory for S2 code, the original flight number will be zeroed out. For operational reasons, the flight plan, ATC, would continue to consider the Jetlite aircraft as an aircraft operating with S2 code and S2 flight number.

A random search on online travel portals reflects these changes and now you can see only one entry for a particular flight, unlike two in the past.

Way forward

The airline has effectively used Code Share as a tool to make this one brand strategy work. However, the livery remains different for the Jetlite aircraft. They would either be moved (sub leased / leased / sold) to Jet Airways, like it happened with VT-JLJ, a B737-900 with Jetlite and now with Jet Airways or just see a chance in livery from existing light blue to mainline colors to further reduce confusion.

But in a country obsessed with food – the first cut has been made. “Jahaj kaunsa bhi honedo, khana jarur milega jee” (Let there be any aircraft, you will certainly get food)

Spicejet Q2 - Absolute Analysis

As SpiceJet declared results late on Friday evening, it was met with criticism from all Quarters. Prathamesh & I wrote a blog post Down but not out - Analyzing SpiceJet Q2 . The top management led by COO – Mr. Kapoor alleged that the media was covering the negatives more than the positives and as more and more people joined in, issues started getting mixed with many clubbing operations & finance. Prathamesh was the first to say that these issues should not be mixed.

Percentage can be deceiving as noted in the blog post and with many others; I was on the forefront to request SpiceJet COO – Mr.Sanjiv Kapoor, on twitter, to declare results similar to those declared by Jet Airways. Spicejet indeed published the additional data this afternoon, which shows the absolute numbers for few critical parameters like average revenue per passenger, CASK, RASK, ASKM.

The 12% increase in RASK is due to maintaining a balance of 9% reduction in average fare per passenger and 19% growth in Load Factor.

The most significant of these is a positive EBITDAR (Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, Amortization, & Restructuring) or simply Revenue – Expenses. The reduction in capacity in the last few weeks, also looks like an effort to drop CASK faster than drop in RASK (Due to Cancellations). This will lead to combining flights on a smaller fleet with minimal cancellations to ensure that revenues outpace costs. Excluding fuel, the reduction of CASK from 2.62 to 2.31 has been fast and with further reduction in fuel costs, the overall number should come down too.

Indeed this has to translate into some key parameters and updating reasons to cheer, points to ponder over and Outlook for Q3

Reasons to Cheer

• Increase in Load Factors
• RASK up 12%
• CASK down 7%
• Load Factor up 19%
• Reduced Losses YoY
• All this will translate into increased chances of finding an investor, either an airline or VC

Points to Ponder over

• Re-delivery of aircraft leading to reduced capacity
• Impact on On Time Performance and loss of high yielding business travelers
• 5 straight quarters of losses at a time when the airline needs funds desperately
• Auditors concerns

Outlook for Q3

Historically, Q-o-Q operational revenue growth for Q3 over Q2 has varied from 30 - 50 %. Considering a fair 25% growth in revenue in Q3 to around INR 1800 Cr. (Q3 FY 14 revenue at INR 1796.3 Cr.) should help in churning out an operational profit. However, with the increase in cost aircraft re-delivery, the operational profit could be under pressure.

However, there will be a significant drop in capacity due to re-delivery of aircraft and thus the historic impact may not be seen this year. By latest counts, 4 B737-900 and 6 B737-800 have been returned in the last 8 – 10 weeks. This is a reduction of 2400 seats a day, considering a conservative estimate of 6 flights a day per aircraft. This reduction in capacity coupled with fares sold cheap during the multiple sale periods, leading to cancellations and combining of flights could well prove a difficult thing to manage from the revenue perspective. The planned seats to be sold at higher rates closer to departure, well may not be around because flights have been clubbed.

Down but not out - Analyzing SpiceJet Q2

In September’12 the Indian Government, approved 49% FDI in Indian Airlines. Kingfisher was already in a holding pattern, trying desperately to get whatever help it can, after not having paid its employees for a considerable period of time, Jet Airways had a debt burden which kept mounting every quarter, IndiGo continued to report profits, and Go Air for once was expanding, consolidating and claiming profits. But a question to anybody in the industry or outside on who is better placed for getting investments – ended up with unanimous answer – SpiceJet. The airline had declared profits in Q1 (Apr-Jun 2012), exceptionally reduced losses in Q2 YoY (Jul-Sep 2012) and was expanding rapidly on domestic routes and launching international stations.

The Q400s had arrived and crisscrossed south and north of the country, Blue Skies policy on international route led to launching flights to places as far as Guangzhou – a first for Indian carrier, Kabul – Another first for a private Indian carrier, and between some unconnected city pairs – Ahmedabad – Muscat, Madurai – Colombo and so on.

Circa - 2014, and a lot of water has flown under the bridge for SpiceJet. It remains a mystery as to how and why Spicejet lost the plot and from being the most suited bride, is now struggling to find a match and as many believe, struggling to stay afloat.

A lot of parallels are being drawn with Kingfisher, but luckily salaries still are on time, International flights have not been pulled out after the initial network rejig, tax issue has been amicably solved, and the top management is ensuring that morale of the work force is high with constant presence on twitter, denying negative reports and introduction of new product and weekend uniforms. However, few aircraft are grounded and robbed for spares, At least 3 of 6 B737-900s returned to lessor and at least 4 B737-800s being returned to lessor in the past few weeks, with rumors of employees constantly looking out for opportunities.

The re-delivery of aircraft and grounding, along with the unfortunate “Buffalo” incident at Surat, the schedule and On Time Performance has gone for a toss, with regular delays across domestic network. The airline has skillfully managed to avoid negative publicity due to these delays and has ensured that international flights are not delayed.

The July – August, traditionally weak quarter, saw frequent sales by SpiceJet shoring up revenues, Load Factors and constant information by top management on RASK improvements across all platforms. While a common passenger may not even be aware about RASK, he or she is more than happy to have cheap tickets to travel and that has helped shore up Loads for the airline, which is giving it its much needed cash to meet operational expenditure if rumors are to be believed. The airline has not announced sale for a long time now.

The airline carried 32.83 Lakh passengers in Q2, which is a tad lower than much larger Jet Airways which carried 33.76 Lakh along with its subsidiary JetKonnect. With a market share of 19.6%, this was the best quarter in calendar year 2014.

The last Annual report talked about increased frequencies, improved OTP & Spare Capacity, none of which has been possible, due to grounding of aircraft and return to lessors. In fact, for the first time in its history, SpiceJet became the smallest carrier in Mumbai with least number of departures.

However the results do show some positive signs, but a lot needs to be done for the airline to survive and the recent spate of re-delivery, cancellations, rescheduling is not making it favorite with the passengers.

Issue of warrants to the promoter group should pump in some “much needed” equity into the firm after red flags by auditors over ‘going concern’ status in the previous quarters. The proceeds have been used to for working capital. Yet, currently the Liabilities outweigh the Assets by INR 1498.6 Cr. & it continues to be a concern.

On operational front, inspiring figures are forthcoming (as compared to previous Quarters) with capacity up 7.0%, RASK up 12.0% and CASK down 7.0%. The impact of fuel costs reduction wasn’t felt and exchange rate benefits were minimal and hence, these figures are notable. But Statistics can be deceiving and when all figures are given out in Percentage, one must have a cautious approach till you see the actual number. And yet again SpiceJet led by its top management has only made statements in percentage terms without giving out the actual numbers for either the RASK/CASK or ASKM, the parameters least understood by even the analyst community in India. No matter what percentage improvements and basis point improvements have taken place, the fact continues that the airline has reported losses in both the quarters this year.

One example, I keep giving to show the gravity of this is when Infosys says that their utilization of resources is 70%, which sounds good but when you translate that to absolute number, it means about 35,000 employees are on bench without work, which indeed is a vast workforce! 

Impressive growth in Other Income driven by ancillary revenues. Stands at Rs. 28.09 Cr. which represents a 70.4% growth Q-o-Q and 127.1% growth Y-o-Y. Hints at not only the success of avenues like SpiceMax suite, where the price conscious Indian is waking up to being charged for added benefits. Operating Revenues at INR 1425 Cr. clocked a growth of 16.4% Y-o-Y, which is extremely striking for a traditionally weak quarter. 

Going ahead, the return of aircraft to lessors, should help reduce Aircraft Lease Rentals and Aircraft Maintenance Costs, though might see a temporary increase in Aircraft Redelivery Expenses which have increased to INR 64.1 Cr. for H1 FY 15 as compared to INR 10.3 Cr. for H1 FY 14. However, this is likely to further reduce capacity and if schedule is not altered and reduced in line with capacity, unlike what is the case now, SpiceJet could be at receiving end from the passengers who are facing severe delays in many cases.

Reasons to Smile

Increase in Load Factor 

Drop in Fuel Prices

Some Worries

Re-delivery of aircraft leading to reduced capacity

Impact on On Time Performance and loss of high yielding business travellers

5 straight quarters of losses at a time when the airline needs funds desperately

Auditors concerns

Outlook for Q3

Historically, Q-o-Q operational revenue growth for Q3 over Q2 has varied from 30.0-50.0%. Considering a fair 25.0% growth in revenue in Q3 to around INR 1800 Cr. (Q3 FY 14 revenue at INR 1796.3 Cr.) should help in churning out an operational profit.

However, there will be a significant drop in capacity due to re-delivery of aircraft and thus the historic impact may not be seen this year.

SpiceJet should rest speculation on the fleet, and if there is a fleet plan in place, announce the same in public along with reduction in flights. Misinformation can be deadly, but No information can be deadlier and currently its heading into a phase of No information.

Conclusion

Will operating profits or huge equity investments come true before worries about going concern becomes troublesome? Only future will tell. 

"A bankruptcy judge can fix your balance sheet, but he cannot fix your company" - Gorden Bethune, ex-CEO Continental 


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Co-Author : Prathamesh Kini

Draft Civil Aviation Policy - Another policy without substance

The draft Civil Aviation Policy was released by the Honorable Minister of Civil Aviation – Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati yesterday. I had a lot of hopes from the policy since the last decade was plagued with policy paralysis in the Indian government. There is a stiff competition between which sectors suffered the most – Coal, Telecom, Industry or Aviation. The perceived scam in purchase of Air India aircraft, merger of Air India & Indian Airlines, lack of efforts to abolish the 5/20 rule( airlines require minimum 20 aircraft and 5 years of domestic operations to start flying international), non-classification of ATF (Aviation Turbine Fuel) into declared goods category attracting uniform 4% tax across the country, decision to go ahead with redevelopment of Chennai & Kolkata airports by AAI – leading to the disaster that they are today, as compared to world class facilities at Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad & Bengaluru, and many more. The list is unending.

However, prima facie the draft policy looks like listing of all problems that need to be resolved and have been in that state for a long time. The policy only highlights the problems without laying down the solutions or ways & means to tackle the problems. It promises to look after taxation issues on ATF, the 5/20 rule and route dispersal guidelines, but gives little on how and when this will be addressed.

There is a common saying – “The more things change, the more they remain the same”. Unfortunately I do not know who this saying is attributed to, but when you see the Strategic 5 year plan of the past government presented by the then MoCA (Minister of Civil Aviation) in 2010 and the Draft Civil aviation policy of this government, one tends to agree with the statement. Both start with quoting ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) statistics of generation of 610 indirect jobs for every 100 direct jobs in aviation.

The Strategic Plan 2010-2015 talks about Indian being recognized as a role model by FAA, which today has downgraded the safety rating to Category 2, Inclusion of 500 more aircraft in Indian skies and 300 more helicopters, One helipad every 100kms on highways, and many more, most of which continue to be Aspirational – similar to the section under which it is quoted in the Strategic Plan.

The new Draft policy talks about having airports as integrated multi-modal hubs with Rail / Road / Metro connectivity, access to manufacturing, business & tourism areas, up-gradation of 18 airports which amount to 86% of traffic, developing the 6 metro airports to have a hub & spoke model, Rationalization of ATF costs by having uniform taxes, Development of 6 metro airports as cargo hubs, Listing of AAI & Pawan Hans, changing the regional connectivity policy and reviewing the 5/20 rule, Air Navigation System & up-gradation of DGCA.

While these are welcome moves, the Revised Route Dispersal guidelines, which were formulated by a leading consulting firm are pending implementation for over two years, due to disagreement between carriers on the nature of the requirements. The airport at Bengaluru located about 40kms away from the city center recently got decent road connectivity. The rail connectivity envisioned while construction of airport is still elusive, many of the 35 non metro airports which saw modernization are already facing shortage of space (Eg: Jaipur) or are white elephants and AAI is incurring huge losses at these places (Eg: Aurangabad, Indore).

The Hub & Spoke model has been a success as Delhi – since there is no other airport in the vicinity which can attract so much traffic, but the same does not work well in the south, where Bengaluru, Chennai & Hyderabad compete fiercely with each other. So while SpiceJet based their Q400s in Hyderabad, a lot of the destinations are connected from Bengaluru and Air Asia changed plans and moved to Bengaluru from Chennai, yet there is no perfect Hub & Spoke at either of these places like there is at Delhi.

However, all has not been bad, implementation of GAGAN, changes in Air Navigation System and subsequent trials at Jaipur, up-gradation of ATC infrastructure at Mumbai and increase in runway capacity, are some of the silver linings.

One can only hope that the draft Civil Aviation policy gets into some tangible project plan, which is implemented phase wise with bounded timelines and the next 3-5 years, would see a serious change in the infrastructure & policy in Indian civil aviation. As more airlines take to skies, the pressure on infrastructure would be immense and similar to the boom in 2005-6 which most of us remember well and would hope is not repeated.

The desert Sun Shine - Analyzing Q2 results of Jet Airways

“If Jet Airways would have reported operational profits, they would not have reported results post-closing hours on Friday” quipped Prathamesh Kini, a fellow aviation enthusiast with whom I’m writing this blog post. This was within minutes of my tweet indicating that Jet Airways have reported profits in Q2 – traditionally a weak quarter for Indian aviation.

The quarter was eventful for Jet, a joint press conference with Etihad - in which the airline announced its move to Full Service, being part of Etihad partners, announcing next round of Abu Dhabi feeders, facing flak for frequent exits at top level, having to deal with pilot shortage and facing DGCA rap for training issues.

The July – September quarter saw Jet Airways reduce its market share in the domestic market, and was down to 20.2% (9W+S2), which has been the lowest in three quarters of the calendar year. Jet & JetKonnect carried 33.76 lakh domestic passengers, a little higher than Spicejet but much lower than market leader IndiGo which carried 53.66 lakh in the same period. However, Jet was not the major benefiter of the 20%+ market growth, which was driven majorly by Spicejet, and the frequent discounted fares on offer. The same has also been acknowledged in the Jet Airways results presentation, which indicates the drop in capacity by 11.1% while the industry capacity has grown by 9.6%, and passengers flown down by 8% for the airline, while the market growth has been 14%.

A closer look at the profits, indeed indicate an operational loss and the reported profits of INR 69Cr because of the fund infusion due to sale of Jet Airways Frequent Flier Program. The majority stake sale of Jet Airways Frequent Flier program for over INR 900 crore, has been debated over. We look at this sale, as just another way to fund the airline, and being worked out to bypass regulatory issues due to selling additional equity to Etihad and increasing its stake in the Indian airline.

The airline has shown an impressive 16.4% revenue growth in Y-o-Y figures for corresponding Q2 quarter, seen traditionally as a weak quarter. This growth stands out because of the slight de-growth reported from Q2 FY13 to Q2 FY14. This revenue growth has come on the back of a notable increase of 13.6% in gross revenue per user to INR 9145 comparing Y-o-Y figures but a miniscule drop from INR 9158 figures quoted in Q2 FY 2013.

Though insignificant in absolute terms, the growth of non-operating revenue is another positive and certainly shows that Jet Airways is back in business.

The 33% increase in Selling & Advertising expenses to INR 496.6 Cr. seems to be driven by the numerous competitive sales promotions. Interestingly, the absolute increase of INR 120 Cr. translates to about 44% of the operating loss of INR 266 Cr. The management also seems to have had a firm control over fuel expenses which has registered a minimal increase, though the recent cut in ATF prices in India aided by drop in crude prices should aid the company improve operating ratio significantly in near future. This comes at a time when the aircraft utilization is reaching historical highs, on the back of additional flights to Abu Dhabi and the entire Gulf Region.

The management has started efforts to target both the top line and bottom line over the past year & efforts could lead positive operating values soon. Peter Lynch once said " The simpler it is, the better I like it" and hence we chose to ignore the complexities arisiing out of exceptional items.

The Average Gross Revenue per Passenger which has been wavy over the last few quarters should now stabilize and then grow as more and more Abu Dhabi and Gulf Feeders are introduced by next May. Thanks to the partnership with Etihad, the initial period in which the airline incurs losses on the new routes, would be minimal.

Points to Smile

Non-operating revenue up 146%

Average revenue per user up 13.6%

Breakeven load factor reduced to 83.4% from 98.2%

Points to Worry about

Salary Arrears of INR 63.6 Cr, which is nearly equal to the profits reported. The Management has not clarified on this and would possibly happen during the investor call.

Lower yields due to frequent sale by competition

Accumulated loss of INR147 Cr this year

Shifting significantly lower yielding routes of JetKonnect to mainline and pushing yields upwards

Outlook for Q3

Shifting to Full Service model

Brand confusion to continue till aircraft are repainted / rebranded

Few additional services in winter scheduled deferred due to pilot shortage

Some unseen moments captured - Attari (Wagah) Border

On a trip to Amritsar in July this year, I visited the Attari (Wagah) border to witness “The Beating Retreat” ceremony between India & Pakistan at the border outpost. This border outpost on the Grand Trunk road is the only road crossing between the two countries which is used regularly for trade.

I had been here before, and this trip was more for food at Amritsar and this ceremony to be witnessed by my better half. We joined the hordes of people going towards Wagah border. Quick readings online, made it clear that number of visitors had swelled since my last visit.

The administration has divided the seating area into two, separate for Ladies & gentlemen. While it was heartening to see people from across the country, the people looked disinterested in what they were to witness and dampener on the experience.

Having the hotel vehicle parked near one of the parking lots, we joined the crowd going towards the border. The Border Security Force (BSF) has put in barriers after barriers where ladies and gentlemen are separated and separate security is conducted for them before proceeding onward.

The area is full of pickpockets and opportunists who come as tourist and pickpocket. Busses after buses full of people from across the country made way and people just ran from one barricade to another in a race to get to the border. As I finally made way post the security gate, I realized that coming 2 hours before the scheduled ceremony wasn’t enough and we should have been here at least 4 hours or so before because all the stands were already full. I ensured that my better half gets some place on the ladies stand and decided to not be part of the craziness since the ceremony is the same.

As was seen last time, the crowds on the Indian side keep swelling and there hardly is anybody on the other side of the border. Since Indians face westwards, the sun stares at you directly.

As I realized that I am in no position to battle it out with the people around, I decided to make best use of the time I had at hand and roamed around the area clicking some interesting pictures.

This photo essay is to give out some interesting pictures. . .

Swelling crowds - Will do anything to get a glimpse of the ceremony

Swacch Bharat campaign at the border anyone ?

Add caption

Indian border post near Attari

Border pillar demarcation

Selling India Key Chains in something advertised as Product of America !!

Anything & Everything will be done to get a glimpse of the ceremony

May be these are queuing up for tomorrow's ceremony

No Place? No problem, recorded ceremony being watched. Crowd here too

The recorded ceremony being played from a DVD player. I like this player

Ways to kill time when you cannot see the ceremony 

Wahh Kya baat hai

Live telecast of the ceremony. No place here too

The owner forgot which side his stall is. . arrow points away from the stall

PRADE ???

Warm up before the actual ceremony. . Iska Darji kaun hai ???

Men intruding the ladies stand

Apple. . advertising at the border !

Achievement unlocked - Standing in India, peeing in Pakistan

Indian Customs - Sleeping ? !

Terrible conditions for people to stand and watch the ceremony

Finally some glimpse of the ceremony

Not sure why this one wants to say Bye to Pakistan

Best time to visit Wagah – Ideally None, but if you have to then winters and a non tourist season

The ceremony takes place every evening 30 mins before sunset and the timings are known in hotels in Amritsar. Hotels and tourist agencies arrange for vehicles to the border.