India’s Jet Airways, in association with South African Tourism and Sun International are conducting a social media and blogging contest titled ‘Why I should visit South Africa this summer’. The winner of the contest, to be selected on the basis of a lucky draw, will be provided with two Jet Airways return economy trip tickets (for a couple) from Mumbai …

Thanks to the increasing security threats, queues at security checks have become the bane of air travellers across the world. However, during my recent trip to Malaysia and Thailand, I found reasonably fast moving lines. In contrast, at peak hours across airports in India, we experience extremely long lines at security checks and a boarding process that moves slower than …

A little tongue in cheek humour as we enter the Easter weekend.As previously announced, Kingfisher Airlines launched its Delhi – London Heathrow flights on March 28th. At the ceremony the guest of honour was famous Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor. Along with the press release one picture caught my eye. Kingfisher’s head of sales Mr. Vijay Arora presented what appears to …

Jet Airways has beaten out Air India and will dry lease three of its Boeing 777-300ERs (B77Ws) to Thai Airways for a period of three years. The deal is estimated at $36 million per year or about $1 million per aircraft per month. Under financial pressure, Jet has been looking to lease these three aircraft after Gulf Air cut short …

Eight days ago, on Sunday 21st March, a so-called bomb was discovered on board a Kingfisher Airlines aircraft at Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) early morning. As usual, TimesNow TV tried to make a huge mountain out of a molehill claiming that a “bomb” was discovered and defused. In reality about a teaspoon full of black powder, the type used in …

China is regarded as the “will-be” economic superpower of the 21st century. A similar “superpower” tag was bestowed on the erstwhile Soviet Union during the second half of 20th century. Yet for all its economic or military might, we did not, nor do we, see queues of potential immigrants or students scrambling to get a visa for either of these …

During the recently concluded India Aviation 2010 show, I met a trio of Indian stewardesses who serve with Qatar Airways. Unlike the European carriers who tend to recruit and station in India, complete cabin crew teams from India, for their Indian routes, Qatar Airways stations their India origin cabin crews at its home base in Doha. Three more beautiful reasons …

Boeing has completed the initial airworthiness testing on the 747-8 Freighter. This will allow Boeing test engineers to be on board during future flights and also brings the remaining two 747-8F test airplanes into the flight test programme. Since its first flight in early February, the 747-8F test plane has conducted 13 flights totalling 33 flying hours with five pilots …

United has signed a firm order for 25 Airbus A350-900 XWB aircraft which it originally announced in December 2009 The aircraft will be powered by Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines. Deliveries of the aircraft will begin in 2016 and run through 2019.

To most passengers, Kingfisher is the only airline in India offering an in-flight entertainment (IFE) system on narrow body aircraft. Not too many people are aware that Jet Airways has also has some Boeing 737 aircraft equipped with an Panasonic efx IFE system with 10.6 inch screens. Jet has 20 Boeing 737NG with seat back AVOD (audio video on demand) …

A Lufthansa Boeing 747-430 registration D-ABVD flight LH755 from Bangalore, India to Frankfurt, Germany and with 288 passengers and 18 crew, was grounded early this morning due to a technical fault in engine 2 (left in-board). After push back as the engines were being started up the flight commander experienced a fault in engine 2. The airline’s ground engineer tried …

Apparently there is a major meeting currently underway at the Bengaluru International Airport Ltd. (BIAL) which will run till tomorrow. This meeting is focus on the expansion plans of the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA). The new de-facto owners of the airport Mr. G.V. Krishna Reddy and son Mr. G.V. Sanjay Reddy of GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd. (GVK) will receive …

Marking International Women’s Day, India’s national carrier Air India created history when at a little past midnight earlier today, the first all-women crew performed an ultra long-haul B777-200LR non-stop flight from Mumbai to New York. AI 141 was the first of the 22 all-women crew flights operated by Air India across its domestic and international network. Women form a core …

The two British plane-spotters, Stephen Hampton and Steven Ayres from Bristol, arrested in New Delhi last month for monitoring ATC conversations, have been fined Rs. 25,000 each by a court in Delhi, after admitting to illegally monitoring aircraft. The two spotters who appeared before magistrates in Delhi were charged under the antiquated but draconian Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, with intercepting …

The Aviation India 2010 began on March 3rd with a bang. Along with political stars, state Chief Minister Rosiah, US Ambassador Timothy Roemer, French Ambassador Jerome Bonnafont, almost everyone in the Indian commercial aviation industry was present for the inauguration. Union Minister of Civil Aviation Mr. Prafaul Patel, Air India Chairman Mr. Arvind Jadhav, Jet Airway’s Naresh Goyal, Saroj Dutta, …

Just about an hour ago, I almost fell victim to the “divert and grab” robbery ploy that is now plaguing Bangalore. I was parked on the main Koramangala road in front of Raheja Arcade waiting for my son who had gone to the Citibank ATM to make a withdrawal. My camera bag was in the rear seat of my Hyundai …

Kingfisher Airlines has loaded on to the GDS its six times a week service between Delhi and Hong Kong from April 7, 2010. As per the loaded schedule, the flight will be operated by an Airbus A330-200.IT031 departs Delhi 23:30 arrives Hong Kong 07:25 next morning daily except TuesdaysIT032 departs Hong Kong 18:05 arrives Delhi 21:10 daily except Wednesdays While …

Keeping in mind the five year term of the Lok Sabha, the first year is the thank you budget, years two and three are the hard and bold budgets, year four is the status-quo budget, and year five is the populist budget meant to garner votes. With coalition politics in full sway, the union budget is also now subject to …

AirAsia Berhad announced net profits of RM549 million ($162 million) for the full year 2009 despite what is described as the worst year in aviation history. While globally passenger demand fell by 3.5%, AirAsia grew its passenger numbers by 21% to 14.25 million for the Malaysian operation. The combined Malaysian, Thailand andIndonesian operations forming the AirAsia Group increased passenger numbers …

I was recently interviewed by AirObserver on the outlook for 2010 for carriers in India, with a specific focus on the low fare / value carrier segment. Please read the interview here. For an in-depth feature comparison between various Indian carriers I recommend this article . I also recommend these articles as additional reading for more details on the low …