by Devesh Agarwal Abu Dhabi based Etihad Airways is releasing a new TV commercial (TVC) across the world in the next few days. Created by M&C Saatchi, the TVC will be released in the UAE on March 3rd, and then across Australia, China, Germany, India, Japan, UK, USA, and Nigeria the next day. The commercial which has been produced by …

by Devesh Agarwal Finance minister P. Chidambaram disappointed the Indian aviation industry in his budget presented before the Parliament yesterday. Last year, then finance minister Pranad Mukherjee, had offered a small relief to the fledgling aviation MRO (Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul) industry by giving a waiver in customs duty for import of spare and testing equipment, but required the spares be …

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that the 2012 global accident rate for Western-built jets was the lowest in aviation history. The 2012 global Western-built jet accident rate (measured in hull losses* per million flights of Western-built jets) was 0.20, the equivalent of one accident every 5 million flights. This represented a 46% improvement over 2011, when the accident …

by Devesh Agarwal Thai Airways subsidiary, Thai Smile will commence direct flights from the island holiday destination of Phuket to Mumbai and New Delhi. Each city will be served twice a week. Mumbai flights will commence on March 31, with flights to New Delhi to start on April 2. AirlineRoute reports the following schedule is loaded in to the Amadeus …

by Devesh Agarwal As per the budget for fiscal 2013~14, presented yesterday in parliament, the Indian government has earmarked another Rs. 5,000 crore (about $900 million) for equity infusion into ailing national carrier Air India. This is the second tranche of a nine year, Rs. 30,000 crore (about $ 5.5 billion) tax-payer funded equity infusion, which is part of a …