A draft circular issued by the DGCA on June 17 had said that any pilot of a wide-body aircraft (these are used mostly for overseas flights) should have a flying experience of at least 7,000 hours, including 2,000 hours on a jet aircraft and 1,500 hours on a wide-body aircraft on international routes.
After rationalising flights and routes, major domestic airlines like Kingfisher, Jet Airways and SpiceJet are introducing sharp cutbacks in staff and salaries to cope with slower passenger growth and rising aviation turbine fuel costs. Manpower typically accounts for 10-15 per cent of an airline's total costs.
State governments have raised serious reservations against a plea by the aviation ministry and domestic carriers to reduce sales tax on aviation turbine fuel. Worse still, states like Kerala which had reduced the tax rate from 28.5 per cent to 4 per cent to encourage carriers to buy from the state have decided to take back the benefit alleging that it is not being passed on to the customers as promised.
Even as domestic carriers are lobbying hard to fly abroad in an effort to utilise capacity better, Mumbai-based full service carrier Jet Airways has deferred the commencement of its Delhi-Hong Kong operations. Sources in the company said that the flights, which were supposed to begin from June, may have been delayed till November.
The Tatas and the Dubai-based Istithmar Group may increase their stake in Delhi-based low-cost carrier SpiceJet, which has a 10 per cent market share in Indian aviation market. While the Tatas, who currently hold 7 per cent stake in the company through Ewart Investment, may hike their shareholding to 15 per cent, Istithmar is likely to raise its stake from 13 to 30 per cent, sources said.
Mumbai-based low-cost carrier GoAir has decided to stop its flights to Chennai from the coming week. This is the fourth destination to which the carrier has opted out after Kochi, Coimbatore and Pune.
After losing out to Bangalore-based GMR group for the controversial Delhi airport modernisation contract, Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group is now set to battle it in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, for which bids are shortly to be invited. Late last week, ADAG company Reliance Airport Developers Private Limited submitted an expression of interest to the Prague airport authorities. the ADAG company is willing to take a 100 per cent stake in the airport.
Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel's plans to make India a maintenance, repair and overhaul hub for aircraft in Asia are set to crash. China, once again, has left India way behind. While over 300 MRO companies are in operation in China, only three have set up shops in India - Max Aerospace, Airworks and Indamer.
Depending on the fleet size and its age, airlines buy 30-50 per cent of the components that they need, and take the rest on lease. Expenditure on spares and components is a considerable part of engineering and maintenance, which account for over 9-10 per cent of the total operating expense of an airline. For instance, Air India, which has a large and ageing fleet, has to provide $35 million-$40 million for spare parts during any time of the year.
India's pioneer of low-cost carriers GR Gopinath is in talks with Cochin International Airport Limited, India's first privately operated airport, to set up a joint venture for dedicated cargo facilities across the country.
National carrier Air India's strategy to cut full-service flights and replace them with low-cost services by Air India Express on its West Asian routes has backfired. The passenger load factor of the flag carrier's low-cost subsidiary for West Asia has fallen a steep 11 percentage points over the last six months as a result of competition from new low-cost entrants and fare wars by incumbents. The PLF on the Dubai-India route fell from 83 to 78 per cent in the same period.
The government is coming out with a policy for setting up greenfield airports for general aviation in the next three to four months. It is also planning to introduce an air cargo policy soon.The broad contours of the policy for general aviation, which includes private charters and corporate jet operations, are more or less in line with the merchant airport policy.
The Delhi government has requested airlines to come up with a detailed note on how decrease in sales tax on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) will lead to higher offtake of fuel from Delhi airport, before taking any measure for reduction in taxes. Airlines have been repeatedly making representations to the state government asking for a reduction in sales tax on ATF from the current 20 per cent to 4 per cent.
Sometime in the second half of this year, Vijay Mallya-controlled Kingfisher Airlines will start operating chartered flights with two helicopters in and around Mumbai. Later, it will also press into service a handful of very light jets.
The govt is likely to propose to the EU that it will validate security procedures in its airports before allowing passengers to carry duty-free goods to India. This is in retaliation to a similar proposal made by EU last year, which led to protests from companies operating duty-free shops in India. EU officials would have to validate the security systems at Indian airports before allowing transit passengers to buy at duty-free shops here, resulting in dispute between the two.
With major predictions of a deceleration in domestic air traffic, airlines are lowering seat capacity by reducing the number of flights or dropping fares in order to fill up their seats. They have also begun the process of reducing the number of aircraft that they were planning to to induct in their fleet as part of their expansion plans. Management consultancy firm Ernst & Young recently estimated that domestic traffic would grow by 24.16 per cent this year
The Mumbai airport has decided not to allow additional flights this summer, thanks to infrastructure bottlenecks. This is likely to spoil the expansion plans of all carriers, including private players like Kingfisher, Simplifly Deccan and Jet Airways. However, airlines have been allowed to re-apply for additional flights as & when they get delivery of new aircraft during the summer. Kingfisher had to shelve 11 additional flights out of Mumbai while Deccan has rescheduled too.
Aviation experts say the existing airports cannot be viable.
"We are definitely planning a multi-modal connectivity to certain places apart from destinations we operate. Though we are primarily looking at railways, we might also look at other means of transport such as roads," said Edgardo Badiali, CEO, GoAir to Business Standard. When a passenger books his ticket on the GoAir website, he will also have an option to book a railway ticket for a place of his/her interest close to the destination at the same time.
With carriers such as Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines all set to battle it out on international routes, leading expatriates with years of experience in global airlines are now being wooed for top management posts.
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