Online travel portals are flooded with flight and train bookings, hotels teeming with requests for accommodation, and spiritual merchandise on e-commerce platforms is selling like hotcakes. As the consecration ceremony of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on January 22 draws near, Indians across the country are putting their travelling boots on as the temple frenzy catches on. India's largest travel technology (traveltech) platform MakeMyTrip (MMT) has witnessed a substantial four-fold increase in bookings for Ayodhya compared to the previous year.
Airline stocks have been soaring following a steep decline in crude oil prices and sustained passenger traffic. Analysts have particularly turned bullish on the stocks of InterGlobe Aviation and SpiceJet. On December 20, shares of InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo) hit a record high of Rs 3,009 on the BSE, having surged 43.24 per cent year-to-date (YTD).
The high speed bullet train is expected to cover 508 km between in about two hours.
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).
The rupee depreciation will work in favour of students who are currently studying in the US and plan to secure a job that pays in dollars.
Jet fuel prices on Thursday were hiked by the steepest ever 16 per cent to catapult rates to an all-time high in step with hardening international oil rates.
Air travel will now become a little expensive as the government has decided to increase the lower limit on airfares by five per cent amid rising aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday. The upper limit on airfares will remain as it is for now. Just a month back, the Centre had increased the lower and upper limits on domestic airfares by 10-30 per cent due to rising ATF prices. While announcing resumption of scheduled domestic flights in May last year, the aviation ministry had placed limits on airfares through seven bands classified on the basis of flight duration.
Akasa Air, which took to the skies two months ago, will allow domesticated dogs and cats in cabin as well as cargo from November and will also be starting new routes in the coming weeks. The airline, which is "well capitalised", plans to start international services in the second half of 2023 once it has a fleet of 20 planes. Currently, the carrier has 6 aircraft and will have a total of 18 planes by the end of March next year.
There's a lot more to the festival than just five days of celebration; that is something you can only experience when you live in Kolkata. And that's what every Bengali living outside the state misses, notes Chitrangada Datta Chaudhuri.
The regular Indian cricket fan is usually stoic, but ahead of the ODI World Cup at home, he is frustrated and angry.
Starting July 1, passengers will be charged an aviation security fee of Rs 150, as opposed to the current Rs 130 for domestic flights, and $4.85 as compared to the current $3.25 for international flights.
Aviation regulator DGCA has allowed IndiGo to wet lease wide-body Boeing planes from Turkish Airlines for up to six months and has rejected the domestic carrier's request for leasing the aircraft for up to two years, according to sources. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) turned down the request of the country's largest airline to wet lease the aircraft for a longer period, citing that the move could become diversion of traffic rights in collusion with a strong foreign carrier that will mainly feed the latter's hub abroad with more passengers from India, the sources said. IndiGo, which currently has only narrow-body planes in its fleet, decided to lease wide-body aircraft to operate more flights on international routes to meet rising demand.
The sudden massive cancellations of Jet have put travel agents and customers in jeopardy
Domestic air travel is set to become costlier as the Civil Aviation Ministry on Friday raised the lower limit on fares by 13 to 16 per cent, according to an official order. The increase in airfares will come into effect from June 1, it said. The upper limits on fares remain unchanged. The government has raised the lower limits to help the airlines amid a devastating second wave of COVID-19, which has reduced air travel significantly.
Travel from India increased significantly after resumption of direct flights in March, Turkiye Tourism Board said, with destination weddings contributing to arrivals
Economic stagnation is the advance payment for polarisation, which extracts a terrible price.
Once again, there seems to be an airfare war in India.
The price of aviation turbine fuel has increased by 50 per cent since January and the situation has adversely impacted IndiGo, its CEO Ronojoy Dutta said on Wednesday. He said the government should bring aviation turbine fuel (ATF) under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and make flying affordable for consumers and viable for airlines. IndiGo is India's largest airline and with around 55 per cent share in the domestic passenger market.
Surface links to Assam's Barak Valley and Dima Hasao district and to neighbouring states of Tripura, Mizoram and Manipur remained snapped on Tuesday as incessant rains triggered landslides and washed off roads as well as railway tracks in multiple locations of Assam and Meghalaya.
Public sector oil firms on Thursday raised aviation turbine fuel (jet fuel) prices by up to 2 per cent, the second increase in three months.
The civil aviation ministry is hopeful of further reduction in the price of aviation turbine fuel this year.
Rising fuel prices, intense competition and inability to pass on spiralling expenses have been negatively impacting the domestic airlines.
The proposal is awaiting final policy sanction from the home ministry.
Modi said different laws related to Hindus, Christians and Parsis and the Special Marriage Act 1954 has determined minimum marriage age of 18 years for a woman and 21 years for man but the Muslim Personal Law holds marriage of a girl legal after she has attained puberty.
Jet Airways is offering special Onam Festival Fares.
'The Indian government evacuated its citizens from the clutches of the Taliban and Covid-hit Wuhan, so I am not worried.'
The national carrier, which is already struggling with its fuel payments, spends Rs 6,000-7,000 crore annually on fuel. A 10 per cent hike in crude price would mean over Rs 50-58 crore of extra costs for the airline.
SpiceJet announced it has started a five-day "1+1 offer sale" where it was offering one-way base fares starting as low as Rs 899, excluding taxes, on its domestic network.
British Airports Authority is considering raising the landing charges, thereby making air travel from India to London expensive from next year. The hike will be to meet the cost of expensive upgrades at airports. The BAA owns and operates seven British airports, including Heathrow. The Civil Aviation Authority said that BAA could increase the charges at Heathrow to 12.80 pounds per passenger next year with subsequent annual rises of no more than 7.5 per cent above inflation.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation's (DGCA's) attempts to curb soaring air fares is well-meaning but misdirected and, probably, ineffective as previous such attempts have demonstrated.
Indian, formerly Indian Airlines, has introduced the Unchecked Fares option. This offers special fares for economy class travel on 146 domestic sectors.
Jet fuel constitutes roughly 40 per cent of the operating cost of an airline.
This year the Pitru Paksha fortnight runs from September 9-24 and will end with the start of Navratri.
The government has decided decides to abolish Airport Development Fee in Delhi and Mumbai from January 1, 2013.
Pakistan's national flag carrier on Thursday suspended flight operations to Afghanistan due to what it called "security concerns", hours after the Taliban government threatened to ban the airline unless it reduced the fare on the Kabul-Islamabad route to previous levels.
In Mumbai, jet fuel will cost Rs 72,830.64 per kl from tomorrow as against Rs 68,103.26 per kl at present.
"As on 31.12.2020, the total Air India dues against various Government Departments on account of airfare including dues towards VVIP Operations were Rs 498.17 crore," the GoI said in a written reply in Lok Sabha
State-owned oil companies on Tuesday slashed jet fuel prices by over 3 per cent as an appreciating rupee made imports cheaper.
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