Deccan with Kingfisher...

A few months back I promised that I will review Deccan website. To be very honest I didn't found any thing different or special to share. Every body knows it now has a feel of Kingfisher but, thats only the feel & nothing like Kingfisher. A jingle was there initially & I could not find it now. Infact, I downloaded it but, its not peppy. They have removed the history of the airline from their website, very sad. They have decreased the check-in weight to 13 kg. I have not flown in Deccan since, its merger with Kingfisher but, some of my close friends don't give healthy review for it. Same old story of being late. Now, the latest about it what I feared earlier. Deccan will cease to exist.

Aircraft Fractional Ownership & India...

I was wondering why I have never posted about any of the charted airlines, even though i did my internship in a charted airline. Let me break this unsaid rule. With so much hype of B-jets (entering in India, Tata has stake in this) & Netjets offering what is known as Aircraft Fractional Ownership (AFO). Being the only person in India (i think so) who has done a project on Aircraft Fractional Ownership (I did a my Internship with Club One Air on the project titled - "Feasibility of Aircraft Fractional Ownership in India"), i believe its my duty to tell my readers about this AFO thing. The concept of AFO can best known on Netjets website, as this company introduced the concept to the world. I would like to cover issues pertaining to AFO in specifically in India. These issues are a roadblock to this concept-

1. Inappropriate Infrastructure.
2. Charted Flights are not allowed to take off on busy timings.
3. Secondary preference given to charted flights.
4. Even Indian Corporates love to have discounts in AFO, how these players will overcome that.
5. Indians dont love to share thier vehicles, how they will share an aircraft.

Well I will not discuss my findings but, these are the million dollar question to be answered.

Shutting Down HAL Airport...

Pressure on the government to keep Bangalore's HAL airport running is beginning to gain ground. While much of the angst is over traffic snarls, the arguments are substantive and deserve attention. The government on it's part is committed to close the current airport. It has signed a concessional agreement (CA) with BIAL where one of the terms is to not allow any other airport within 150 kms radius of the new one.

Article by Samuel Jacob

To know more please click on the title, for complete article.

History of low-cost airlines in India...

Knowing about my passion for Airlines one of dear friend send me a link. It had all the latest information about the low cost airlines in India. The ailines covered in that article are as follows -

• Air Deccan
• JetLite
• GoAir
• SpiceJet
• Indigo
• Air India Express
• Jagson Airlines
• MDLR Airlines
• Paramount Airways

I have not even changed the title of the article. Plz click on the title to read brief history of the above said airlines with present situations. Its a beautiful article on rediff.com

Freedom... I Doubt...

Ever noticed the Registration of Aircrafts in which you fly. There is one thing common in all & that’s all the registration starts from VT. So what actually does that mean. In good olden days, I am talking about British Raj period, all the aircrafts at that point were registered as Viceroy Territory. The Irony is that it still holds good & today aircrafts are registered for the short form of the same that’s our VT. None of the associated authorities have considered to think about that. We may have got freedom some 60 odd years back but, are we really free???

Developments in Indian Aviation

Important Developments in Indian Aviation -

• Four airlines given NOC to operate as Regional Airline – M/s. Star Aviation for Southern Region, Jagson Airlines for Northern Region, M/s. MDLR Airlines Pvt. Ltd., for Northern Region and M/s. Zav Airways for North-East/Eastern Region.
• Air India will become the full-fledged member of the Alliance formally by 2009, when the IT Integration and other issues will be completed. Specialized teams at Air India, Star Alliance and its member carriers are now working on the integration process.
• Approval given by Government to set up Greenfield airports in Kannur (Kerala), Navi Mumbai and about the international airport at Jewar, Greater Noida that is under the consideration.
• Andhra Pradesh State Government announced the reduction in the sales tax on ATF from 33% to 4%.

more details about Zav Airways can be taken from http://zavairways.com/

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