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The first of the Indian Navy’s eight P-8i long-range maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft, ordered on manufacturer Boeing back in January 2009, completed its first flight earlier this morning. IN320 took off from Renton Field at 12:02 PDT (00:32 IST) earlier today and landed 2 hours and 31 minutes later at Boeing Field in Seattle. During the flight, Boeing …

by Devesh Agarwal India top news SpiceJet passenger loads on Q400 flights exceeding expectations within a week of commencing serviceSources inside the airline have told Bangalore Aviation that the passenger load factors on their Q400 operations have smashed the airline’s expectations within the first week of travel itself. On almost all routes, the passenger load factors are exceeding the break-even …

Over the last 15 days, Kingfisher Airlines has been savaged in the media (read articles here and here) based on a research report by analyst Neeraj Monga of Veritas Investment Research Corporation of Canada, which casts doubts on the airline’s viability. A report earlier today, in The Mint newspaper appears to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The …

by Vinay Bhaskara India: Air India launches austerity drive Air India, in a move that defies its traditional profligacy, will be launching an austerity drive beginning October 1st. Rohit Nandan, Air India’s chairman, related in a memo that Air India will be enacting the following initiatives.Payments on reimbursements of entitlements and vouchers will be cut by 10%, in addition to …

Yes, it is three years late, but finally, the tires have been kicked, ANA’s team from the ground to the flight crews have checked out the plane, and the payment has been made. Boeing and launch operator All Nippon Airways (ANA), have signed the formal documents completing the contractual delivery of the first 787 Dreamliner ZA101, registration (tail) number JA801A. …

by Vinay Bhaskara Starting this week, we will be providing readers with an intelligence brief recapping the major commercial aviation news from India, and the rest of the world. India- Cathay Pacific and Jet Airways re-shuffle Delhi – Hong Kong Cathay Pacific and Jet Airways both announced major changes to their operations on the Delhi- Hong Kong sector for IATA’s …

A Beechcraft 1900D belonging to Kathmandu, Nepal based Buddha Air crashed while attempting to land, in dense fog, near the national capital Kathmandu earlier this morning. The plane with 16 passengers and three crew was on a flight from the capital to view Mount Everest and crashed on its return around Bisankunarayan village, just a few kilometres south of Kathmandu. …

by Vinay Bhaskara Earlier this year, I took a trip to Switzerland on Lufthansa. The first part of this trip report was published during my time at FlyerTalk’s The Gate blog, so this part covers the return trip (a review of the lounges at both Zurich Kloten and Frankfurt will be published at a later date). As I mentioned in …

The team of Vinay Bhaskara, Addison Schonland and Devesh Agarwal bring you another edition of the India aviation review podcast. In this edition we feature the dilemma faced by a bankrupt Air India and its 27 787 Dreamliner order. There is no doubt that the airline needs a good mid-sized aircraft, but it is out of money. Is the national …

by Devesh Agarwal A little over two years ago, Boeing showed mock-ups of a new cabin interior for their 737NG series aircraft. The “Sky Interior” utilises inputs from the Boeing 777 and 787 Dreamliner to improve the passenger experience. (To see photos please ready this related story) Last week, Jet Airways took delivery of its newest Boeing 737-800 VT-JBU, and …

Air India Express, the low cost wing of India’s national airline Air India, has announced an expansion of its domestic network with two new routes, as well as expanded service from Kerala to Oman. The exact details of the changes and new flights are given below. Delhi-Kochi IX411- DEL: 0600 ~ COK: 0915 DailyIX412- COK: 2005 ~ DEL: 2320 Daily …

Indian low fare carrier SpiceJet commenced the first Indian commercial operations of a Bombardier DH4 Q400 turbo-prop yesterday. Here are two pictures on the 78 seat interior of the aircraft and its state of the art “glass cockpit”. You will observe, that unlike other turbo-props, the Q400 features large overhead baggage compartments.

The world’s best airline, Singapore Airlines will be effecting a significant change in its scheduled operations at Mumbai starting from the Winter 2011 schedule which goes in to effect on October 30th. The carrier is also strengthening the operations of its regional subsidiary SilkAir across India. MumbaiCurrently the carrier operates double daily flights between the financial capital of India and …

This is the final carrier-specific financial analysis for Q1, covering JetLite. The overall market picture will be studied in a separate analysis. Previous Analyses: Jet Airways, Kingfisher, SpiceJet Despite the positive results shown by its parent carrier Jet Airways in the face of rising fuel costs, low fare carrier JetLite succumbed to domestic competitive pressures, posting relatively poor results in …

Noted TV personality Karan Thapar grills former civil aviation minister Mr. Praful Patel in this interview on CNBC-TV18. Mr. Praful Patel is known to be a smooth operator. One might even call him the “Teflon Minister”. It is interesting to see Mr. Patel squirming, trying not to answer directly and trying to divert the what he wants to say, and …

-RyanAir considers its passengers as “self-loading freight”by Devesh Agarwal “While 80% is common, there is no single LCC model that is used across the world”. These were the thoughts expressed by SpiceJet’s Chief Executive Officer Neil Mills in a relaxed and free spirited conversation with Bangalore Aviation’s Devesh Agarwal, enroute to Niagara Falls immediately after taking delivery of the new …

By Devesh Agarwal and Vinay Bhaskara Late on September 4th, 2011, the first Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental rolled out of a paint hangar near Boeing’s Everett Factory in Seattle in full Lufthansa colors. This first aircraft, which will be registered as D-ABYA, will undergo stringent ground tests ahead of planned initial test flights beginning in November. As per Boeing, this first …

Continuing the series of Indian carrier financial analyses, today we take a look at Kingfisher. Previous Analyses: SpiceJet Following the trend of most Indian carriers, Kingfisher posted a drop in net income; facing a net pretax loss of Rs. 3.90 billion vs. a pretax loss of Rs. 2.64 billion in Q1 2011. As compared to SpiceJet, Kingfisher did not see …

On the eve of delivering the first Q400 NextGen turbo-prop passenger aircraft to Indian low cost carrier SpiceJet at Toronto Downsview airport, Bombardier gave a product briefing to the visiting journalists including Bangalore Aviation. The first two aircraft VT-SUA and VT-SUB which departed last Friday arrived at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) just as I was boarding my …

Earlier this morning, the board of Boeing officially approved the launch of a new engine variant of the Boeing 737. Boeing says that the 737 MAX 7/8/9 (coinciding with the 737-700/800/900 in terms of size), was launched “based on order commitments for 496 airplanes from five airlines and a strong business case.” Of those 496 order commitments, only 100 have …