Regional airlines that have received approval include MDLR, Jagson Airlines, Star Aviation and Zav Air. Others like Mega Airways and Premier Airlines are still awaiting approval.
With SpiceJet and Simplifly Deccan all set to give away similar throw-away offers and GoAir looking for similar tie-ups with travel portals, air travellers can expect around 25,000 such cheap-fare tickets on offer up to April 15.
At this price, the ticket would be about 65 per cent cheaper than other return fares.
The high tax regime makes aircraft service above 50 per cent more expensive than international rates and might spell trouble for over a dozen MRO projects -- several of them involving foreign direct investment that have been announced so far.
On long-haul routes to Bangalore and Hyderabad, new airports being built under public-private partnerships, the increase could be roughly Rs 1,000. In Delhi and Mumbai, which are being modernised under PPPs, the increase could be a smaller Rs 300 on similar routes because these airports do not charge development fees.
The government recently allowed the foreign carriers to have a 74 per cent stake in Indian cargo carriers. A total of 49 per cent FDI was earlier allowed in the cargo sector, but no investment by a foreign airline was permitted.
Hopper, short-haul flights lift performance.
The Andhra Pradesh government will invite expressions of interest for eight minor airports to come up in the hinterlands under a public-private sector initiative. The airports will be set up in Nellore, Kothagudem, Tadepallegudam, Bobbili, Ramagundam, Kurnool, Nizamabad and Ongole. Each airport project is expected to cost Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million).
Almost 200 out of 400 weekly domestic and international flights in and out of Kochi will be severely affected with the airport authorities deciding to close the runway from 10 am to 8 pm every day for seven months starting November this year.
Delhi Airport has reduced the minimum annual guarantee paid by duty-free operator, Alpha Future.
The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, which is being developed by GMR on the outskirts of Hyderabad, will be the first greenfield public-private partnership (PPP) airport to be operational in March 16.
This season, even as airlines hike fares and go stingy on discounts, customers are gaining from the various offers given by travel portals.
The new government guideline against simultaneous take-off and landing of aircraft from the same runway (now one runway would be used for take-off and the other only for landing) will increase delays in flight movement by 40-50 per cent, say airlines.
While full-service carriers like Kingfisher and Jet Airways are cutting down on business class seats and concentrating on the economy and leisure travellers, low-cost carriers (LCCs) have made it clear there would not be any rock-bottom fares this season.
Omaxe, L&T and Unitech have already applied for the Rs 200-crore (Rs 2 billion) development projects at Udaipur and Amritsar. The work includes commercial operations and maintenance of the airport terminal building, besides development of 46,268 sq metres and 110,308 sq metres of land for city-side development and cargo handling facilities at Udaipur and Amritsar, respectively.
A total of 27 out of the 35 non-metro airports that have been taken up for development suffered a total loss of Rs 172.64 crore in 2006-07. Six of these made a loss of more than Rs 10 crore (Rs 100 million) each.
Indians are splurging to fly high on second-hand private jets. The cost of these jets (over 75 per cent of the business jets sold in the country are second-hand), are on an average up to 50 per cent cheaper than a new aircraft.
ITDC/Aldeasa, a joint venture between state-owned Indian Tourism Development Corporation and Spanish company Aldeasa, had bagged the contract for duty-free operations at Mumbai airport for Rs 571 crore (Rs 5.71 billion) in February. Operations were to start in June. Instead, two weeks ago, Aldeasa wrote to MIAL saying that the contract value should be reduced to Rs 250 crore (Rs 2.5 billion).
Despite private sector developer Delhi International Airport Ltd bracing for a long and foggy winter with added infrastructure, the shortage of CAT III pilots in some airlines could still mean long delays for passengers.
As the demand for air travel picks up in the smaller towns across the country, travel portals are aggressively moving into these markets outside the six metros wooing aspirant air travellers with easier booking facilities. Most of the prominent travel sites like makemytrip, yatra and cleartrip claim that the places to look at now are smaller cities like Varanasi, Surat, Chandigarh, Baroda, Ludhiana, Vizag and Coimbatore.
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