Indian Aviation dying steadily & quickly...

I was just going through the sites of couple of airlines to know the fare structure. I was surprised to see that the tax charged is more than Rs3500/- per ticket. The ticket price for Delhi-Mumbai on a GoAir flight was just Rs. 885/- & rest was the taxes. I still remember those days (just 6-7 yrs back) when one need to pay just Rs. 225/- as charges over a ticket. So who is responsible for this. I totally believe that its the Govt. All airlines are in red, whatever any body may say or claim but the truth us none of them is making money. All are losing tonnes of cash. Even for the condition of Air India, which is now struggling to even pay salaries. Govt. may say that it has liberlised the industry & has come up with Open Sky policy. All this is really bullshit. Aviation Ministers' have made crores & crores of money (present & past). No clear policies on any thing. Be it airport infrastructure or any other facility. There is no point that LCC airlines will survive in India. They need budget & smaller airports to operate. Future is really bleak for this industry, beacuse of Govt. apathy. Soon there will be a time that there will be 2-3 airlines (max.) if things dont change. All the rosy picture shown will just fade away. If govt do not do any thing concretely, trust me on this future is dark. A black spot.

The Low Cost Charters (LCC)...

Just imagine getting the services of Air Charters in the cost of business class air tickets. Yes, this is going to be possible very soon. Till now we only discussed about the low cost model of the scheduled airlines. Today I will discuss about the low cost model in air chartering. Air chartering which was considered to be exclusive, is soon will be in the reach of middle class people. This can be done with VLJs i.e. Very Light Jets (more info about VLJs from wikipedia). There are already a few companies trying to get VLJs in India. These are :

MyJet India

Club One Air

Invision Air

MyJet & Club One Air are going to start their services soon. In fact, MyJet will offer per seat on demand which is very unique & first of its type in India, where as Club One Air will offer high end services (matching its present offerings). Not much information is there about Invision Air.

Watch out for MyJet !!!

Indian Aviation in the new year...

Happy New Year... with this note let me point out some of the issues i am concerned about in this new year... -

• What if after the coming General Elections govt. gets changed & it keeps different views than the present one?
• What if the ATF (Aircraft Turbine Fuel) keeps on rising?
• Will the new MD of Air India be able to do what the present is dreaming of?
• Is some other LCC will have the same fate like that of Air Deccan (now known as Simplifly Deccan)?
• Will common man will still be able to take on the skies wit rising fares n taxes?

In the end just hoping that this yr turns out to be excellent one for the Airline Industry.

Jet flying in turbulent weather...

The problems for Jet Airways are incresing just like the taxes n surcharges on air tickets... it all started when Kingfisher changed its business model from being a LCC to a full service premium airline & started taking on Jet... Then came its IPO & the Jet sahres were listed above Rs. 1000 per share. But, only then its decision to acquire Air Sahara came. The market & even the department heads of Jet reacted to it very sharply (agianst the deal). Share prices tumbled by nearly 50%, which till now have not been able to touch its listed prices, many of the department heads left Jet . Every body knows the end result of the deal... Air Sahara becoming Jetlite. By that time there were so many entrants & tough competition from LCC's started eating up its profit. In the mean time, International routes were opened for Indian private carriers & Jet tried to capitalise on this oppurtunity. Jet purchased new aircrafts...exactly the same time competition came from Air India with its new image, services, planes, etc... Jet just trying to handle this situation, Kingfisher announced its acquisition of Air Deccan to directly take Jet Airways head on. As of now Jet & Kingfisher have equal market share of nearly 29% (with thier combined entities respectively). As of now, all the decisions taken by it are going against Jet's favour... but, if Jet is able to survive this turbulance, I believe that Jet will return to its earlier position not only in Indian Aviation but, it will show the same performance internationally.

Not so Simple in Simplfly Deccan...

I was jus goin thru the new look of Deccan website (which i will review soon), where i found their new resheduling & cancellation policy. In bold its written that-

• Please note: This Rescheduling / Cancellation Policy supersedes all previous rescheduling / cancellation policies; all old rescheduling / cancellation policies will no longer be valid.

Besides this, earlier they used to refund the money if a passenger wished to cancel his/her ticket, but now they have stopped it. Now, they give a credit period of 180 days. Same as all other LCC's. Deccan was the only LCC who used to refund passenger's money. It was jus like a competitve edge for them bt, now they have lost their advantage over others.

Also, in their resheduling they have made following changes-

• If the applicable fare (basic and surcharge) is more than the current fare, the difference amount will be charged to the passenger along with a Rescheduling Fee of Rs.500/- for either advancement / postponement of the flight.
• If the applicable fare (basic and surcharge) is less than the current fare, the difference amount WILL NOT BE REFUNDED to the passenger and difference amount will be charged to the passenger along with a Rescheduling Fee of Rs.500/- for either advancement / postponement of the flight.

By introducing these changes in their policies Deccan has lost its edge.

It used to be a common man's airline but, no more.

A feather of Indian Aviation has been diminshed as soon as it bacame Deccan from Air Deccan.

The policy can be read @ Deccan's website or jus by clickin on the title of this post...

Competiotion @ its best...

Objective of the hoarding was to highlight the Image makeover of Jet Airways. It was done to reposition the airlines as an int'l airlines. The theme of the ad shows that the airline has changed...bt, some of the issues which i feel left uncovered were, as the airline changed its logo it has not been given much attention. If the size of logo would have been big enough then, the hoarding would have been much more effective. now, if some1 gives a simple look to it, its hard to find out which co. has is it for. even, the name of co. is written in very small, it should hv been big & bold.the message is nt so clear, wat could hv been, at least wat 1 can expect from Jet Airways. now, it looks sm kind of cool stuff in a frst look, the logo & co. name is visible, the message is clear for Kingfisher. they hv positioned the billboard right over the jet's hoarding, the msg. given is clearly understood. bt, wait 1 questn...is this ethical frm a brand like Kingfisher??? i mean the wat they hv gained financially frm this, may be nothing, it looks so cheap... if they hv put this money in sm good ad. it would hv been gr8. ohhh...this is really crap now, its a clutter, all this look catchy in a frst shot, bt, to read it completly u hv to stop ur vehicle for a while & read it to understand its meaning. every1 is tryin to dwngrade every other. in the terms of communication, its a noise in the communication process. GoAir,a LCC is trying to show, its presences in between full service carriers. nice try. all this happened in our own Mumbai. if m nt, wrong in the month of march or april.

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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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