Wadia group-owned Go First will temporarily suspend flights on May 3 and 4 amid severe fund crunch, the airline's chief Kaushik Khona said on Tuesday.
Air India, SpiceJet, IndiGo and AirAsia India ready to fill in the gap.
It is bonanza time for international travellers yet again, with foreign carriers like Singapore Airlines, British Airways and Cathay Pacific cutting fares almost 50 per cent.
Approval was held up due to CBI investigation into international flying permit of Tata group-owned AirAsia India.
SpiceJet's resurgence, once the new funding is in place, has the potential to disrupt the Indian aviation market in 2024 as the airline will bring its grounded aircraft back to service and lease as many planes as possible to be competitively relevant, aviation consultancy firm Capa India said on Thursday. "Although the market for procuring aircraft in 2024 is exceptionally tight, we expect that SpiceJet will bring stored aircraft back into operations, and will wet or dry lease as much capacity as possible, in order to be competitively relevant. "This will have a material impact on the industry structure, and possibly on domestic profitability," Capa India said in its report.
Currently, Vistara has more than 22 planes and operates around 850 flights every week.
As per information available with the Corporate Affairs Ministry, the new company was incorporated on November 5 with a total paid up capital of Rs 500,000 and has been registered in New Delhi.
Both Vistara and AirAsia India, along with their partners, are quietly putting together an aggressive plan to become a formidable force in the skies. At the core of this new push is their plan to go international this financial year.
Air India on Friday said it has completed the acquisition of its first A350-900 aircraft by way of a finance lease transaction with HSBC through the GIFT City. This is also the first wide body aircraft to be leased through the GIFT City, the country's first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). In a release, the airline said the transaction was facilitated by its wholly-owned subsidiary AI Fleet Services Ltd (AIFS) and is also the first financing transaction from the orders for 470 aircraft that were made earlier this year.
The plane can fly non-stop to Singapore, Doha (Qatar), Kuwait, Abu Dhabi (UAE), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Tehran (Iran), Salalah (Oman) and Kunming (China), among other destinations, from various Indian airports.
IndiGo's size should be compared with global carriers, and not other domestic airlines, chief executive officer Pieter Elbers said on Tuesday, adding that such benchmarking will help India transform its airports into aviation hubs. Elbers flagged the tendency to scrutinise domestic competition, assess fares on domestic routes, and determine if they are high. "But if we want to build some hubs, we should have a broader look," he said during a panel discussion at a convention organised by All India Management Association (AIMA).
Air India, IndiGo, and SpiceJet have suspended flights to China and Hong Kong.
Vistara CEO Phee Teik Yeoh discusses the airline's expansion plans and challenges with Alnoor Peermohamed.
With the FIPB giving approval to the Tata-Singapore Airlines joint venture to start a full-service carrier, Tata Group Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata on Friday met Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma.
The letter was sent as an early warning of what was then widely being perceived as a plunder of national resources.
India's newest airline-Vistara is bullish on growth prospects.
Scholarships, sports and spirit define Phee Teik Yeoh, the new CEO of Vistara in India
Jet Airways, SpiceJet and Vistara also operated all women crew flights, though on their domestic network.
Malaysia Airlines, the operator of Flight MH370 that went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on Saturday, has established a record as one of the Asia-Pacific's best full-service carriers in terms of safety and service.
Singapore Airlines on Tuesday said Vistara will be merged with Tata group-owned Air India. Tata group owns a 51 per cent stake in Vistara, and the remaining 49 per cent shareholding is with Singapore Airlines (SIA). As part of the transaction, SIA will also invest Rs 2,058.5 crore in Air India.
It will start its operations through an arrangement with Singapore Airlines.
Jetstar Asia on Thursday launched its international no-frills, low-cost and thrice-a-week flights between Kolkata and Singapore.
India witnessed the highest increase in airfares among the 10 top aviation markets in the Asia-Pacific and West Asia collectively across both domestic and international flights Q4 2019 and Q4 2022 in nominal terms, according to research by Hong Kong-based Airports Council International (ACI). India, where fares went up by 41 per cent, was followed by the UAE (34 per cent), Singapore (30 (per cent) and Australia (23 per cent). The study, which was undertaken in collaboration with Flare Aviation Consulting, examined around 36,000 routes in the top 10 aviation markets in Asia-Pacific and West Asia.
Malaysia's budget airline AirAsia, which is eyeing more routes to India, China and Singapore, has said the country's aviation sector must be open to competition to ensure passenger growth. \n
Full service carrier Vistara will continue to expand and expects to have a total of 70 planes by mid-2024, its chief Vinod Kannan said on Tuesday. The airline, a joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, reported an operating profit for the first time since inception in the three months ended December 2022. By the middle of next year, Kannan said it will have a total of 70 aircraft, including 7 Boeing 787s.
Tatas and Singapore Airlines have assured the government that control of their proposed airline venture would always remain in Indian hands, while seeking approval to offer passenger services on both domestic and international routes.
Singapore will be counting on its marquee Formula One race to help make up for a 30 percent drop in Chinese tourists this year.
Starting with a minuscule 0.07 per cent share of the market, Kingfisher soared to 7.7 per cent after 12 months and 10.6 per cent in April this year.
The carriers are scoffing at making the life of their competitors 'easier.
When the Tatas re-boarded Air India on January 27 last year, the price of aviation turbine fuel was at over Rs 80,000 per kilolitre. Rupee was trading at around Rs 74 to a US dollar. The Omicron variant of Covid-19 was in prevalence - barely a week earlier, India had reported over 340,000 cases on a single day. Seven-day home quarantine of international travellers was the norm.
In a dramatic turn of events in May 2019, an Emirates aircraft en-route to Dubai was asked to stop while it was taxiing for a take off in Mumbai. The pilot was given no reason and ordered to immediately return to the parking bay. As the aircraft returned to the terminal, two passengers from the first class - Naresh Goyal and his wife Anita - were offloaded by the immigration authorities, who said the duo cannot leave the country. Goyal, founder of Jet Airways, was stunned. The man, who ruled the aviation sector for two and a half decades with an iron hand, did not expect to be offloaded in this fashion.
Phee Teik Yeoh, who has returned to the SIA HQ in Singapore worked hard to make Vistara the airline of choice. New CEO Leslie Thng would have the job of cutting losses while going international.
State-run Air India has withdrawn its 10 direct flights to international destinations in the last three years due to poor passenger load.
The airline is offering return fares as low as Rs 15,999 on the India-UAE route and Rs 51,999 on the India-US sector.
Air India chief Campbell Wilson on Friday said that a majority of pilots have accepted the new compensation package offered last week, amid protests by Air India pilots' unions against the revised salary structure and service conditions. The loss-making airline, which was taken over from the government by the Tata Group in January 2022, has announced a new compensation package for pilots and cabin crew. In his weekly message to Air India staff on Friday, Campbell said the airline is making investments in workplace technology and training as well as in new and improved employee benefits.
The airline, which bagged the second position after Jet Airways in terms of the number of passengers, got permission for launching international operations from the forthcoming summer schedule, which begins in April and continues till October-November.
Expanding its international network, private carrier Air Sahara on Friday announced it would launch its Delhi-Singapore service on May 11 and the Chennai-Kuala Lumpur flight on June 15, with an introductory return fare of only Rs 10,000 on both secto
The Tata Group-owned Air India has readied a five-year transformation plan, which is expected to take its domestic market share to 30 per cent, up from 8.4 per cent logged in June. IndiGo leads with a market share of 58.8 per cent. The transformation plan--Vihaan.AI-unveiled on Thursday revolves around tripling the domestic market share with investments in new aircraft, technology and improvements in customer service.
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