The island nation of Singapore has become the tenth in the list to ground the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, following the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 on March 10, 2019. Countries or airlines across the globe are grounding the aircraft as a precautionary measure till a determination can be made. The MAX is the new re-engined version of …

The Ministers for Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu and Jayant Sinha, recently released the “Passenger Charter” which codifies the rights of air passengers when they travel with scheduled commercial airlines in India. The official document can be downloaded and read from here We recommend you read the Charter carefully. It imposes certain demands and places certain responsibilities on airlines. However, it …

Low fare carrier, GoAir, has announced it will commence four flights a week between Kannur in Kerala and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates from March 1, 2019. The airline will also commence flights between Kannur and Muscat, the capital of Oman, a day earlier, from February 28th. Flight Schedule Flt No From To Dep. Time Arr. Time Freq. …

Bengaluru International Airport Limited (BIAL) the operators of the Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru has officially announced the launch of a Rs 13,000 crore expansion programme. The expansion includes the second runway to the south called the New South Parallel Runway (NSPR), Terminal 2 (T2), and expansion of the access roads including an under-ground tunnel from the eastern boundary of the …

India’s largest domestic carrier IndiGo, found itself at the centre of a public relations firestorm when it announced a policy change and decided to universally charge for seat allocation during web-check-in. In a rather casual manner the airline clarified that those who did not wish to pay the charge could come to the airport and have a seat auto-assigned. Opposing …

Singapore Airlines (SIA) is re-jigging routes between its low-cost subsidiary Scoot, which took over TigerAir, and its regional subsidiary SilkAir, as the latter mergers into it. A number of destinations in India are affected. Between April 2019 and end 2020, Scoot will take over some of SilkAir’s routes over the next two years, and also transfer some routes or services …

The potential of the Tatas acquiring the beleaguered Jet Airways, raises a lot of questions. Bangalore Aviation presents an operational analysis on where and why the acquisition makes sense and what it would need to go through. This analysis focusses on the Tatas acquiring Jet and merging it with Vistara, the brand of Tata SIA Airlines Limited, the joint-venture of …

Bangalore Aviation readers will recall our article last year highlighting the poor growth of air-side infrastructure at Indian airports. This morning, the Director General and CEO of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Alexandre de Juniac, called on the Indian government to address, on priority, infrastructure constraints that limit growth and government policies that impose excessive costs on aviation. IATA …

Saturday, September 1st was a blustery and rainy day at New Delhi’s IGI airport. However, the excitement and warm hospitality by the team members of Vistara and their agency Avian, removed any gloom from the minds of us aviation geeks and press present for the occasion. Vistara, the brand of the Tata SIA Airlines joint venture of the Tata Group …

The Ude Desh Ka Aaam Nagarik (UDAN) scheme launched in June 2016 has been hailed by the Government as a game changer. The intent of the scheme is to connect un-served and under-served airports across the country in an affordable manner consequently boosting connectivity. This is delivered via routes that are bid-for and awarded to airlines by the government including …

Over the last year, the media has covered the various challenges AirAsia India is facing. Ranging from executive level departures late in 2017 onwards, to filing a First Information Report (FIR i.e. a criminal complaint) against former officers of the airline, to CBI (Central Bureau of Investigations) investigations of its director. In this analysis, we explore how the hyper-competitive Indian …

Airlines are constantly re-inventing their inflight safety videos to get the attention of passengers. British Airways has just debuted the newest edition of their safety video made in partnership with Comic Relief. The video features British stars (in order of appearance); comedian Asim Chaudhry playing the “director” of the safety video, Chabuddy G., and as themselves Sir Michael Caine, Bond …

United Airlines has opened its new United Polaris lounge at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), located near gate G92 of the international terminal. United Airlines operates from San Francisco to India in partnership with Lufthansa. We also write about this lounge for the benefit of premium class passengers on other Star Alliance carriers like Lufthansa, Air India, Turkish Airlines, or …

Spanish flag carrier, Iberia, also a member of IAG, has taken delivery of the first of its 16 A350-900 XWB on order. While it is the 18th carrier overall to operate the new generate aircraft, MSN219 is the first A350-900 to feature the latest performance improvement package (PIP) including a wing twist, extended winglets and increased maximum take-off weight (MTOW) …

Bloomberg is reporting that the Tata Singapore Airlines joint venture Vistara has selected the Boeing 787 Dreamliner over the Airbus A330neo as its wide-body aircraft for long distance international operations. Why did Vistara choose the 787 Just some of the reasons for Vistara choosing the 787 over the A330neo are: The 787 is a newer generation aircraft compared to the …