BJETS delays aircraft deliveries as economic crisis bites

Asian fractional ownership firm BJETS has asked manufacturers to slow the delivery of the business aircraft it has on order due to the ongoing economic crisis.

The company, which is backed by USA-based investment firm Briley Group and Indian Hotels, operator of the Taj brand of luxury hotels in India and part of the Tata Group conglomerate, ordered 20 Cessna Citation CJ2+s, nine Hawker 850XPs, 11Hawker 900XPs, and 10Hawker 4000s last year. It had planned to take delivery of all the aircraft within five years.

However, it had only five aircraft in its fleet at the end of 2008, down from the seven it envisaged, says chief executive Mark Baier. BJETS will have 11-12 aircraft by the end of 2009, below the 15 it originally targeted. Several will be managed aircraft, he adds.

"Clearly, it is a smaller business than what we envisioned a year ago. But that is expected given the economic climate and tight credit situation," says Baier. "We began to talk to the manufacturers about delaying deliveries just before the stock markets crashed and as demand faltered. That was a good move as we can now manage the delivery schedules better."

The company, which places jets in Singapore for the South-East Asian market and Mumbai in India for south Asia, has attracted some fractions since it began operations last September. While its block charter and traditional charter businesses are slowly growing as well, BJETS is also moving into the aircraft management business.

"We did not expect so many owners to turn to us for quality management services. We will begin to manage several aircraft this year," says Baier. "The charter business is holding up. Some companies and top executives are shelving or delaying plans to buy business jets, but they still keen to on the idea and so turn their interest to the charter market."

BJETS is also trying to offer value added services. In India, for example, it has an agreement with helicopter operator Global Vectra Helicorp - which has seven helicopters available for charter - to provide access to destinations in the country without a landing strip.

"This association will strengthen our product offering in terms of accessing more destinations that do not have a landing strip but offer a helipad. While BJETS can access over 120 airstrips in India already, our partnership with Global Vectra will enable our customers to fly to all those destinations that cannot be reached by other aircraft," says Baier.

Future Airports in India...

Presently India have 460 airports n airstrips. The Govt. now plans to have nearly 500 airports n airstrips in India by 2020. This will include the ongoing redevelopment of currently unused airports or little used airports and development of greenfield and cargo airports. There are another 368 landing strips that function as makeshift airports for limited purposes. As many as 156 belong to the defence or semi-defence sectors and various state governments while 63 are owned by the private sector. The peculiar situation in India is that air traffic is concentrated at a few key airports. They include 16 offering international services and another eight that connect domestic sectors. These 24 airports together account for a whopping 94 per cent of traffic and the balance is spread over 36 smaller or regional airports. A very liberal aviation policy is requires to reach the target of 500 full-fledged airports in the country, which has to be backed by an aggressive programme to upgrade existing small airports. Airport development in India is expected to be largely a private sector play in the near future.

Some state governments like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra have also identified as many as 15 airports for development.

Private conglomerates already run some airports like those in Mumbai, Kochi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi.

taken from www.ibef.org

Infrastructure development at Indian Airports...

By 2020, Indian airports are estimated to handle: 100 million passengers Including 60 million domestic passengers Cargo in the range of 3.4 million tonnes per annum. The Government’s airport modernisation plan proposes investments of US$ 9 billion by 2010. The Government plans to develop around 300 unused airstrips across India - a move that has raised projections for jets required for regional connectivity. Boeing and Airbus, along with Embraer (Brazil), Bombardier (Canada), Sukhoi (Russia), ATR (France) and BAE System (UK) are keen to tap the emerging regional jet market in the country. Increased activity in the maintenance and repair operations (MRO) sector has attracted many foreign companies. Lufthansa has tied up with GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL) to open an MRO facility for which it intends to invest US$ 23 million. Similarly, Boeing intends to invest US$ 100 million in a facility in Nagpur. With airport infrastructure being upgraded, non-aeronautical revenues (from malls, bookshops and entertainment centres) are expected to contribute almost 50 per cent to revenue of airports. Several pilot training shops are being set up across the country:

• Airbus has decided to set up an aviation school in Bangalore to train 1,000 pilots a year
• Rajeev Chandrasekhar's Jupiter Aviation is looking to set up a similar venture in Bangalore or Hyderabad
• Aviation consultant Praveen Paul has set up his own aviation school
• Deccan Aviation's venture with ATR, and Jet Airways and budget carrier UB Group planning to set up training centers.

http://www.ibef.org/

Private Airports goes Commercial…

The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MCA) has given approval to 03 private airstrips to go commercial. These are –

• Jamshedpur Airport owned by Tata Steel Ltd.
• Vijaynagar Airstrip owned by JSW Steel.
• Mundra Airport (Gujarat) run by Adani Group.

These can boost Regional Airlines, which will use smaller airports. Air Traffic Control will be manned by AAI, but airport charges can be levied by their own discretion. Air Deccan has started operating a flight b/n Jamshedpur & Kolkata with an ATR. Tata has guaranteed a minimum number of seats to the airline. All these gives a rosy picture about boom in Indian Aviation, bt, I have a couple of serious questions-

• What if the govt. do not complete its 5 yr. term? (shows the current tussle b/n Left parties & Congress Party )
• Even if it completes 5 yr. term bt, do not come to power after the gen. elections in 2009. What if new govt. change its policy or even slow down the whole process? (the way it happened in the case of much-hyped golden quadrilateral by the then, NDA govt. & as soon as UPA came in to power the whole process slowed down). Well I am not against any govt. or taking a political side bt, a fair question to be asked… because all this happens in India… Jus hope 4 d best.

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The all – round development of Indian Aviation…

First came the open sky policy of 1990’s, which gave a boom to full-service carriers, then it again started with Air Deccan as country’s first LCC, then came the modernization of Int’l airports, followed by Non-metro Airports, then came the regional airlines which is now followed by development of nearly 300 airstrips all over India & the latest trend or I can rather say craze in Indian Aviation is Cargo Airlines…Air India has already started its cargo operations with two aircrafts…Jet Airways may also come up with a unit which will be dedicated to only cargo business…some of the upcoming cargo airlines are –->

• Flyington Freighters. It been promoted by Deccan Chronicle Holding & will be based in Hyderabad. It will have scheduled operations to various overseas destination. Its fleet will include a mix of A-330-200F’s & B-777 freighter’s. If everything goes according to plans, having an A-380 in the fleet is also on cards…
• then comes Aryan Cargo Express. It will start as an non-scheduled operator (operating both domestically & overseas)…it will start with a fleet of 03 B-757-200 freighter aircraft & as they will increase their fleet size (may be mid-2008), they may consider entering in to scheduled operations…
• the last one is Air Cargo Express which will start its operations with a fleet of ATR’s…

Its also been heard from industry watchers that Reliance may also consider its cargo airline to compliment its Supply chain…as of now, Bluedart is the only dedicated Air cargo operator in India with a market share of nearly 40% closely followed by Jet Airways with 30% & remaining with other carriers…now, it seems to me that Indian Aviation industry is really booming with all round development & not a single stone is left unturned…

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