Neha Jain: http://indianairlinesnews.blogspot.com/17

1. Honeywell: To Provide Maintenance Services To Jet Airways, SriLankan Airlines
MUMBAI (Dow Jones)--Honeywell International Inc. (HON) Thursday said Jet Airways (India) Ltd. (532617.BY) and SriLankan Airlines Ltd. have both chosen the aerospace company to provide maintenance services for their aircraft.

Honeywell will maintain the auxiliary power units fitted ...

2.
Jet seeks nod for direct flight to US

After connecting destinations in Europe, West Asia and Southeast Asia, Jet Airways has sought permission to fly directly to the United States from next winter. The winter schedule starts in October.

“Jet has asked permission to fly to New York, directly. The flights could be either from Delhi or Mumbai and the airline wants to fly on all seven days a week,” said a senior civil aviation ministry official seeking anonymity.

Click here to visit SME Buzz

Also Read

Related Stories
News Now
- Chandrakumar is AI Express COO
- Air India gives in, sacks COO of low-cost arm
- Adhunik Grp to set up power plant in Jharkhand
- Jet's QIP plans not linked with expansion plans: Goyal
- CAG asks govt why it bought 111 planes for AI
- AI to hire 700 to meet its shortage of cabin crew
As of now, the airline owned by Naresh Goyal, flies to New York with a stopover at Brussels. Air India, American Airlines and United Airlines operate direct flights between India and the US.
The US and India have open skies policy, which means any number of airlines and flights can connect any destination in the country. With a fleet of 97 aircraft, Jet Airways serves 47 domestic destinations and 24 international destinations, and is the country’s largest carrier in terms of passengers carried. With a strong domestic network, the airline is increasing its presence in the international arena and now has 100, of its 400 flights, operating to international destinations. The aviation ministry has also given permission to operate daily direct flights to Amsterdam.

“We have allowed Jet to fly to Amsterdam and they can now go ahead and get into a code share with the airline of that country,” said the official.

Jet recently got permission to fly to Milan and they have a code share with Alitalia, which could be in a slight trouble. “Jets code share with Alitalia will need some change in bilateral agreement signed between India and Italy. We are going to do this soon,” said the official.

Recovering from recession, Jet is expected to end the current financial year with profit as it has made one in the first three quarters of the current financial year. It ended last year with a loss of Rs 420 crore and the 2009 financial year with a loss of over Rs 950 crore.

In the third quarter of this year, Jet has posted a 11 per cent growth in profit after tax of Rs 118 core for the third quarter against Rs 105 crore for the same period last year.

The airline also witnessed 15 per cent more passengers in the quarter.

3. Jet Airways and SpiceJet eye Bangalore-Mysore sector

The Mysore airport runway, where only one flight lands and takes off in a day, may witness more activity in the near future.

According to the Airport Authority of India (AAI), two commercial airlines have shown interest in starting operations in addition to Kingfisher airlines which operates on the Bangalore-Mysore sector five days a week.

AAI DGM Rajiv Gupta, who is in charge of the airport, said Jet Airways and SpiceJet had shown interest in starting services from Mysore. Officials from the two commercial airlines visited the airport to inspect the facilities.

“They had visited the airport a few months back. They are carrying out route surveys and other planning activities to find if it is feasible to start commercial flight operations,” said Gupta.

The existing infrastructure at the airport is sufficient for these airlines to immediately start operations. And there is tremendous potential for more airlines to operate from Mysore which attracts scores of tourists throughout the year, especially during the Dasara festivities.

“With over 140 industries in Mysore, there is a lot of potential for airlines to operate more flights, especially short haul ones,” he said. Though the airport built and developed by the AAI at Rs82 crore was inaugurated in May 2010, commercial flight services started only in October last year as airlines were not keen to start operations fearing poor load factor.

However, according to AAI, Kingfisher airline has occupancy of 75% per flight. Its ATR flight departs from Bangalore at noon and arrives in Mysore at 12.45pm. It leaves for Bangalore at 2.20pm.

4. Jet Airways to re-convert flights to economy service in lean season
Mumbai: In a bid to fend off increasing competition from low-cost rivals and also cut costs and increase revenue in a lean season, Jet Airways (India) Ltd says it will convert one-third of its domestic flights into its all-economy service, Jet Airways Konnect.

Company executives said the move would release an extra 20-25% seats though the yield from each plane is expected to reduce by 10-15%, as aircraft are divested of higher-priced business class seats.

Jet Airways launched Konnect as a no-frills service in May 2009 in a bid to cope with the economic slowdown and reduced passenger demand. It reconverted most of these Konnect flights to full-service flights last year September as passengers returned to air travel in droves.

Jet Airways is India's largest airline by passengers carried.

The March quarter is a traditionally weak quarter in terms of passenger demand and passengers tend to opt for low-cost options. Jet's strategy to reconvert to the Konnect option can be achieved without much fuss, according to airline executives, without incurring too much costs or impacting flight schedules.

Though yield will come down, Jet will save on costs by as much as 30% because of cost savings in terms of catering and flight attendants.

NEHA JAIN

International Airlines Training Expo