Weekly Indian Aviation Summary - 22June to 27June

Summary for Week 21^st June to 27^th June

Air India inducted into Star Alliance

The Star Alliance Chief Executive Board, which met on 23^rd June in London, approved the induction of Air India into the alliance. It will formally come in place from 11^th July,2014 when member benefits will be extended.

Air India is the first airline from India to be part of any alliance, largely described as a missing link by all the alliances. The closest any airline came to joining the alliance before last attempt of Air India was Kingfisher Airlines, which went into a holding pattern just before joining One World, which was scheduled sometime in March’2012

The aviation fraternity is looking forward to the Dreamliner with Star Alliance logo and livery

Air India launches flights to Moscow

Air India will launch flights to Moscow-DME from 18^th July 2014. The flights will be operated 4x weekly on Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

AI155 DEL 0155 – 0615DME x247 788

AI154 DME 0820 – 1530 DEL x247 788

Air India code-shares with Aeroflot on its daily Delhi – Moscow-SVO flights which are operated by Airbus A330. The new flight will connect both ways to Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai , Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow.

Moscow has three airports, Sheremetyevo – the hub of national carrier Aeroflot , located towards the north west of the city; Domodedovo – the hub for S7, located south east of city and Vnukovo – the hub of Transaero, located towards the west of the city.

While I expected Air India to operate to Sheremetyevo and expand its code-share with Aeroflot for connectivity in Russia, it has chosen to fly to Domodedovo, where most of the western countries fly along with the Star Alliance members.

Spicejet to reduce frequency on certain sectors

Spicejet, could be sending one more aircraft to Europe on lease, going by its schedule.

It is set to reduce flights on few sectors effective 15^th July’14

SG886 DEL0535 – 0750IXB D 737

SG887 IXB0820 – 1045DEL D 737

SG887 DEL1120 – 1240SXR D 737

SG864 SXR1315 – 1420DEL D 737

Spicejet will continue to serve these sectors, with 1 direct and 1 flight via Guwahati on the Delhi – Bagdogra sector, 3 direct flights on Delhi – Srinagar sector, in addition to two via ( one each via Chandigarh & Jammu).

Flights on Delhi – Goa sector are being reduced effective 30^th June.

SG846 DEL1535 – 1810GOI D 737

SG847 GOI1840 – 2105DEL D 737

Spicejet will continue to operate double daily on the Delhi – Goa sector

Air Costa increases frequency on Hyderabad – Chennai sector

Air Costa, which is inducting capacity in the southern markets, is increasing frequency on Hyderabad – Chennai sector w.e.f 3^rd July.

The new flights would be at below timings

LB667 HYD0900 – 1020MAA D ERJ

LB656 MAA1945 – 2045HYD D ERJ

Summarizing the last week in Indian Aviation

After being out of action due to a bout of viral fever, and being busy for an entire week before that meant that I could not complete the piece of blog I had started writing. The one about who leads the domestic market share at Delhi. While I will take some more time to complete it, I thought of starting another series here – which comes with a small bit of history with it.

When I completed my MBA and joined work, with “the” premium carrier in India in those times, I had come up with a weekly newsletter, which would summarize what happens in the aviation space – mainly related to networks, new flights, cancellations and big announcements for the week gone bye. Difficult to say, it was popular, but it certainly was useful for many and people still remember those newsletters when I meet them once a while. Thus came a thought of replicating the same idea on the blog.

To be very honest, this will only be a collection of network related news gathered from multiple points including sources and would have been published on multiple forums and social networking sites before it comes here.

Summary for Week 14^th June to 20^th June

Spicejet to continue with the seasonal wet-leasing of its aircraft

Spicejet, like last year, will again send few of its aircraft to Europe (SmartWings) to be operated for the charter services as part of a wet-lease deal. VT-SPQ has already left Delhi for Prague on 18^th June and operated its first flight as QS1082 between Czech capital - Prague and the Croatian resort town – Split on 20^th June

New Destination for AirCosta

Vijaywada based startup carrier AirCosta with its fleet of E-170 and E-190 jets is adding Madurai(IXM) as its 9^th destination.

Flights will be from Chennai and effective 3rd July

LB 642 MAA1645 – 1805IXM x26

LB 642 MAA1715 – 1810IXM 26

LB 643 IXM1825 – 1925MAA x26

LB 643 IXM1830 – 1925MAA 26

New Destination for Air Asia India

As Air Asia took wings last week with flights between Bangalore & Goa and started flights between Bangalore & Chennai, it announced its 4^th Destination – Kochi. Flights will be effective 20^th July – which is a very long lead time and the flights would operate at timings mentioned below .

I5-1123 BLR0855 - 0955COK 320 D
I5-1124 COK1020 - 1120BLR 320 D 

This will increase the utilization of its sole aircraft to 8 flights a day, all of almost an hour each.

GoAir adds flights to Chandigarh and seasonally discontinues flights to Port Blair

GoAir, is adding a third flight on Mumbai-Chandigarh route effective 3^rd July. GoAir will be joined by Indigo – which already operates triple daily on this sector.

The new flight operates 5x weekly as below

G8 389 BOM1215 – 1430IXC 320 x23

G8 388 IXC1500 – 1725BOM 320 x23

This comes, as Go Air pulls out of PortBlair during the monsoon season where it provides connectivity from Mumbai – Via Chennai and Delhi – Via Kolkata. Flights to Port Blair resume from 1^st October’2014

IndiGo adds flights on Chennai – Pune sector

IndiGo, which recently launched its 500^th daily flight, when it started the second Delhi – Jammu flight, has launched additional flights on the Chennai – Pune sector. The airline now operates 19 departures a week, each way and offers maximum seats on the sector amongst all the carriers operating.

The new flight operates at below timings.

6E529 PNQ2250 – 0035MAA 320 D

6E385 MAA2155 – 2330PNQ 320 D

It may be noted that Jet Airways pulled out of this sector in April.

 KIA announces policy to attract airlines

Largely seen as a policy to give sops to Air Asia India, which recently shifted its hub from Chennai to Bengaluru, the management at Bengaluru airport has come up with a policy to attract airlines to set up base at Bangalore. Currently, only Air Asia qualifies for the benefits.