Neha Jain: http://indianairlinesnews.blogspot.com/ 27

1. Jet leaves passengers in lurch

PATNA: Over 50 passengers booked on Jet Airways' Delhi-Patna-Delhi afternoon flight 9W-2287 and evening flight 9W 727 had a tough time as the airline refused to allow them to board the aircraft due to sudden unfavourable weather conditions due to extensive heat on Sunday.

Both the flights had about 150 passengers booked on it. Sources said the airline refused to let the passengers board the aircraft because air had more than normal level of heat. "In such a condition, it is not advisable to carry heavy load," a source told TOI.

However, these passengers were accommodated on Air India, Go Air, IndiGo and Kingfisher's Patna-Delhi flights, sources said.

2. Jet Air’s on-time performance soars to 89% in Feb

Jet Airways, Jetlite and GoAir were the only three domestic airlines that reported a month-on-month increase in seat factor (number of seats occupied against number of seats available) this February.

All other domestic airlines saw a marginal decline with overall domestic seat factor also declining owing to end of peak travel season.

As per data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Jet’s seat factor was up to 76.5% (73.9%), JetLite’s to 80.2% (74.6%) and GoAir’s to 87.1% (83.3%) during the month.

The biggest decline, almost by 3 percentage points, was seen in Kingfisher’s seat factor at 83.6% (86.5%), followed by Air India at 68% (69.3%), SpiceJet at 81% (82.6%) and IndiGo at 87.6% (88.6%).

In terms of market share though, Kingfisher continued to rule the domestic skies, despite IndiGo snapping at its heels. While Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher network carried almost one in five domestic passengers, with 19% market share in February, low fare IndiGo was not far behind at 18.7%. Jet Airways was also close behind IndiGo with 18% share of the market and Air India (domestic) was at the fourth place with 15.8% share. SpiceJet was a distant fifth at 13.8%, followed by Jetlite at 8.1% and then Go Air at 6.6%.

In a statement on Wednesday, though, Jet claimed market leadership when taken together with low fare subsidiary JetLite. “Jet Airways, together with JetLite, successfully retained its leadership position in the Indian Aviation sector with a dominant market share of 26.1%....Jet Airways carried 3.81 lakh international revenue paying passengers in the month of February 2011 with an overall seat factor of 81.1%. The airline also carried 8.24 lakh domestic revenue paying passengers with a seat factor of 76.5%,” the statement said.

But Jet’s passenger complaint record wasn’t so rosy, with the airline facing maximum complaints per 10,000 passengers at 4.1.

Though the number in itself is quite small, it compares poorly with Air India Domestic’s 1.1, which was surprisingly the topper in this category. Kingfisher saw 1.7 complaints, JetLite 2.1, GoAir 2.2, SpiceJet 2.8 and IndiGo 3.1.

In the on-time performance (OTP) area, Jet again topped with 9 out of 10 flights taking off on time. Jet’s OTP was the highest at 89.2%, followed by 88.7% for Kingfisher and 86.8% for IndiGo. The worst was SpiceJet, with almost one in four flights not operating on time and an OTP of just 73.9%. Air India domestic also had a similar record with 25% flights getting delayed and OTP of just 75.8%. One in five JetLite flights also could not fly on time at 80.6% OTP. GoAir’s OTP was bettter at 83.2%.

3. Direct flight to Mumbai from Sunday

PATNA: Come March 27, and Patna would have a direct flight to Mumbai. The non-stop Jet Airways flight would operate daily, taking off from Patna at 10.10 am to reach Mumbai at 12.30 pm.

There's no direct flight from Patna to Mumbai, as of now. While a Kingfisher flight goes to Mumbai via Ranchi, GoAir operates a flight between Patna and Mumbai via Delhi. IndiGo's Patna-Mumbai flight goes to Lucknow first.

4. Will SC allow private airlines to handle ground services?

While the Delhi HC upheld the CCS decision of restricting private airlines to perform ground handling operations, airlines knocked the doors of the Supreme Court. CNBC-TV18 learns that the airlines are in a big dilemma as the SC hearing is on the April 4, 2011, while the policy is getting implemented on April 1, 2011. CNBC-TV18’s Swati Khandelwal Jain reports.
Here is a verbatim transcript of Swati Khandelwal Jain’s comments on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.
We understand from sources that the new ground handling policy will come into effect from the April 1 this year. Remember, the ground handling policy was first formulated in 2007. But it could never get implemented because the private airlines including Jet Airways, JetLite, Kingfisher, Indigo, GoAir had opposed it because they restrict them from doing their own ground handling operations.
Now, the airlines say that this will mean that their ground handling cost will almost double, if they outsource this to one of the three operators that the policy permits. It also says that they may have to pass on the cost to the consumers, which means that the ticket prices could go up going forward.
We also understand that the airlines have about 15,000 or more direct and indirect employees which to the ground handling for them. So, it means that almost 15,000 or more jobs will be at stake.
Not just this, they have already invested over Rs 322 crore put together on ground handling infrastructure, so that’s going to be the big blow for the airline companies. Of course, we will have to wait and watch what really happens in the Supreme Court where the airlines have gone ahead and appealed to the Supreme Court against the judgment that came in from the Delhi High Court. But till then it’s going to be a big dilemma for the airline companies. We could see the ticket prices going up going forward.

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Neha Jain

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