This has been an interesting week for civil aviation in India. Last Saturday saw the much delayed arrival of Air India’s first Boeing 787 Dreamliner at New Delhi. The national carrier had taken delivery of VT-ANH just two days earlier. See a video of the 787 being assembled. Very early, yesterday morning, September 13, saw the arrival of the new …

In the very early hours of September 13th, Lufthansa landed its first Boeing 747-8i at Bengaluru International Airport. The B748 service on flight LH754 from Frankfurt to Bangalore commenced one day earlier than announced since Lufthansa was able to complete its fleet induction of the newest 748 D-ABYD, one day earlier. Keeping with tradition, the fire-fighters and rescue teams of …

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. No more can be said of this picture of A6-EDC Emirates Airbus A380-800 at the ILA 2012 show in Berlin. To download the original ultra-high resolution, click on the image, then right click in the slide show and save image.

Doha based Qatar Airways and Bangalore based, Indian IT giant, Wipro have entered into a long-term strategic partnership, designed to develop new technological solutions for the airline. This agreement will bring together Qatar Airways’ expertise in aviation systems and Wipro’s experience of application development and project management to develop a new suite of IT software. The partnership was officially signed …

Malaysian low cost carrier AirAsia, the world’s largest customer for the Airbus A320, will become the first operator ‘Sharklets’ fitted A320s when they take delivery of the first A320 equipped with these fuel-saving wing-tip devices at the end of this year. The carrier has ordered a total of 375 single aisle aircraft, comprising 200 A320neo and 175 A320ceo, of which …

IBM analytics is enabling Jet Airways, to accurately calculate, track and report aircraft emissions, allowing the airline to use advanced analytics to map the carrier’s carbon emissions, optimising its fuel usage by detailed analysis of each flight. This is part of a strategic 10-year business transformation agreement, the airline signed with IBM, in 2010. IBM’s Integrated Emission Management System is …

After much delay Air India has finally taken delivery of its first Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft. The airline has taken out full page advertisements in most major newspapers across the nation, extolling the virtues of the aircraft. There are many short-comings at the airline that need correcting. The most important being political and bureaucratic meddling and micro-management of airline operation. …

With the arrival of its 68th Airbus A320, India’s largest domestic airline, IndiGo, is increasing its services between Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Goa, and Chandigarh from today. From the released time-table below the aircraft commences its work at 05:50 in the morning at Ahmedabad to Mumbai to Chandigarh to Mumbai to Goa to Mumbai to Chandigarh to Mumbai and finally back to …

The first wing for the Airbus A350 XWB has arrived at the European airframer’s final assembly line in Toulouse, France. The A350 XWB wings are about 32 metres long and six metres wide, making them the biggest single civil aviation part made from carbon-fibre composite material. This wing, will not fly, but will be assembled on the A350 XWB airframe, …

Vinay’s Trip to India Review Index Part I – Lufthansa in Economy on Newark – Frankfurt – Bangalore Part II – Lufthansa in Business on Mumbai – Munich Part III – Air India in Economy on Bangalore – Mumbai Part IV – United in Business on Munich – Newark Part V – Lufthansa Business Lounge in Newark Part VI – …

After years of waiting, including a few weeks of nail biting delays, Air India’s first Boeing 787 Dreamliner VT-ANH arrived at IGI Airport in the nation’s capital New Delhi, at the end of a 15 hour flight from the airframer’s Charleston, USA, delivery centre. Even Mother Nature, who was thundering and raining over Delhi this week, made sure the Dreamliner …

VT-ANH under a Boeing test regn. N1015B at India Aviation 2012 After much delay, national carrier Air India has taken delivery of its very first Boeing 787 Dreamliner at the airframer’s facility in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. The aircraft LN 35, registered VT-ANH, was received by Captains A.S. Soman and Amitabh Singh on behalf of the airline. The aircraft is …

Thanks to its strong, and consistent, on-time performance, Gurgaon based IndiGo, has grown to become the largest domestic airline in India, by passenger numbers. On Tuesday, 4th September, along with my better half, I experienced one of the rare delays that occur at the airline, and it was a doozy. A humble request to read the story till the end. …

Late last week, I traveled through Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) on my way to Mumbai traveling on Air India. While the trip report for that flight will be posted at a later date, I managed to snap a few pictures of the construction currently going on at the airport. Back in 2010, Bangalore International Airport Limited announced a Rs. 1000 …

Late yesterday, India’s ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) announced the latest allocation of traffic rights to Indian carriers. Traffic rights granted effective Summer 12 Spicejet – 7 services/week for Delhi-Kabul, Delhi-Guangzhou, Madurai-Colombo, Hyderabad-Bangkok, Trivandrum-Male, Cochin-Male, Delhi-Dubai, Mumbai-Dubai, Delhi-Hong Kong, Delhi-Riyadh. Jet Airways – 4 services/week on Guwahati-Dhaka, 7 services/week each on Mumbai-Chittagong, Kochi-Kuwait, Mumbai-Kuwait, Trivandrum-Dubai, Chennai-Colombo-Male, Mumbai-Singapore, Delhi-Singapore, Mumbai-Dar es …

When Gurugaon -based low-cost carrier (LCC) SpiceJet announced its latest round of international expansion, it continued the recent shift in strategy by India’s second largest LCC. Amongst the new routes announced or filed for (according to a report from the Mint, India’s local Wall Street Journal affiliate) were Madurai-Colombo, Delhi-Dhaka-Rangoon/Yangon, Delhi-Riyadh, Delhi-Guangzhou, and Trivandrum-Male. Of these, Madurai-Colombo has already been …

For the first time since I joined Bangalore Aviation, I am posting from India; Bangalore to be exact. I am definitely excited to be back in India for only the second time since I lived here for a year back in 2003, and being on the ground here is an immensely enjoyable experience. I will be in Bangalore today and …

[Note: Most of the links are to web pages in German. Use a translation tool or a web browser with built in translation like Google Chrome.] German national carrier Deutsche Lufthansa AG faces multiple flight disruptions after talks with the union representing over 18,000 cabin crew failed. The failure of the 13 month old talks has been acknowledged by both …