A severe squeeze on margins has prompted leading international airlines such as Virgin Atlantic, Sri Lankan Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Delta, KLM, Syrian Airlines, Aeroflot, All Nippon Airways, Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa and Finnair to withdraw over 100 flights in the last six months.
With the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation pushing electronic booking of tickets and scores of online travel portals entering the business, the share of tickets sold online in the total ticket revenues of the railways has doubled to nearly 30 per cent this year.
Kingfisher, Jet and state-owned Air owe Rs 4,000 crore to oil companies and airports. Dues to the Airports Authority of India, private airports and oil companies IOC, BPCL and HPCL were to have been cleared by March 31, under the government's mandate. Industry figures show that the three airlines are collectively projected to make operating losses of Rs 5,000 crore.
DIAL, the GMR-led consortium modernising Delhi airport, had projected it would get only a Rs 800 crore-Rs 1,000 crore deposit for the entire 45 acre land in the hospitality district, leaving a gap in funding for the modernisation plan. The aviation ministry allowed it make up the shortfall by levying an ADF on passengers. With DIAL managing to persuade bidders for the hospitality district to increase security deposits by close to 50 per cent, the ADF may now be reduced.
The decision to relocate the second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 tournament to South Africa has prompted several key advertisers such as Hyundai, Havell's and Reebok, among others, to consider cutting back budgets or pulling out.
Differences have cropped up between the civil aviation ministry and Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) over the closure of the airport's main runway.
The funds are needed to meet losses for the next two years, sources said. The channel, which was launched in April 2008, earns around Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million) a month and incurs an operating monthly cost of Rs 7.25 crore (Rs 72.5 million). As a result, its monthly loss is about Rs 5 crore (Rs 50 million), translating into an annual loss of around Rs 60 crore (Rs 600 million), sources said.
Many travel companies said customers are waiting and watching. "People are holding on to see if better deals come their way. So although advanced bookings are down, we might see people booking during the summer months themselves," said Richa Goel Sikri, director of Delhi-based STIC Travels.
Nripendra Misra's three-year stint as chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) will be remembered for a host of recommendations and a number of controversies. Controversial issues like the conditional access system, non-CAS pricing kept Misra, who retires as Trai chairman on March 22, 2009, in the news.
Indi Media had bought NewsX in January from INX News, reportedly for Rs 50 crore. INX was promoted by ex-Star India CEO Peter Mukerjea and his wife, Indrani Mukerjea, both of whom quit the company with the sale. Indi Media is said to be owned by a clutch of investors led by Vinay Chhajlani, CEO of Webdunia.com India, and promoter of the Hindi daily, Nai Duniya, and by Jehangir S Pocha, former editor of the weekly, Business World.
"The airlines failed to respond to the falling market. While there was a cut-down in capacity by around 25 per cent in September, the airlines brought back the flights starting from January and replenished capacity in all sectors. So we have a clear case of oversupply," said DP Singh, general manager, corporate planning, AAI.
The CEOs met late last month to discuss the agreement. Industry experts said one advantage would be the fact that GoAir was looking at increasing its fleet to 20 aircraft by 2011. "If SpiceJet acquires the airline, it will gain access to slots for the aircraft orders which it can sell," said an industry expert. Selling order slots has emerged as a lucrative revenue stream for several Indian airlines that are feeling the pinch of falling passenger traffic.
With this deal, Jaipuria's RJ Corp will own over 10 bottling plants, controlling 25 per cent of PepsiCo's bottling capacity in the country (earlier he was PepsiCo's largest bottler together with his family). Confirming the development, Jaipuria said the deal would be complete in a day or two. "The West Bengal operations will contribute 10 to 15 per cent to our turnover," he said.
This indirect outsourcing will make Airbus' parent company EADS' total business outsourced to India grow 10 times by 2020, from the current euro 100 million. In comparison, the total outsourcing to countries outside Europe will only increase by more than three times in that period, albeit from a far larger base of euro 8 billion. Industry experts said this indirect outsourcing would be a clear way to rationalise costs.
This is nearly 3 per cent of the total number of cable and satellite TV viewers--an extremely good number, considering past coverage data -- say media planners.
Fox Star Studio India, the distributor of Slumdog Millionaire in the country, has managed to gross around Rs 40 crore (Rs 400 million) from the markets, surpassing collections of some of the biggest Bollywood hits of last year such as Rock On.
Industry sources and certain airline executives revealed this was done after the LCCs hammered out their differences with full-service carriers on certain contentious issues related to pricing. Industry source said the fares had been lowered as a protest against the full-service carriers' sale of coupons worth Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) and valid for six months to travel agents across the country at prices that were 20-30 per cent less than those available on their websites.
Full-service carriers like Kingfisher, Jet Airways and Air India sold travel coupons worth around Rs 300 crore to travel agents a few days before the airlines almost doubled their fares in one go. Experts say the full-service carriers have ensured 5-6 per cent of their average sales through these coupons. This, they add, will partly make up for the slowdown in demand expected due to the fare hike.
Cheerleaders will applaud each six or boundary in their unique way. Bands will play in between overs.Only the venue is different. Instead of the cricket stadium, Indian Premier League enthusiasts can get all this for the price of an admission ticket to a movie hall. Multiplex chains like PVR, Inox Leisure, Cinemax, and Big Cinemas, among others, are negotiating the theatre rights to host at least one IPL match a day during the 45-day tournament starting April 10.
The gap between the average fares of a full-service airline and a low-cost carrier for metro routes narrowed by a third in January, thanks to leading players cutting their fares quite dramatically to grab the market share.
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