Cruisingheights

CRUISING HEIGHTS September 2012

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF’S NOTE

3

Rahul Bhatiawas bluntand straight-f o r w a r dwhen he said

that in America if onefailed to pay salaries for months on end, itwould be the end of the road. “In USA, aFAA is equivalent to the DGCA. If theywere confronted with a situation where thecrew is not paid for months, be it pilot ortechnical staff, I guarantee they would shutthe airline on safety grounds,” he told theIndian Chamber of Commerce in Kolkata.

The government was not amused andissued a stern rejoinder: “…On the issue ofsafety of airlines, it is stated that theDirectorate General of Civil Aviation(DGCA) has been regularly monitoring thesafety-related issues of all airlines. The DGhas also decided to quarterly monitor thesafety records of airlines as per the industrynorms. Further, there are no regulatoryframeworks anywhere in the worldallowing cancellation of the license ofairlines merely for failing to pay salaries tothe staff. The comments of Shri Bhatia inthis regard are uncalled for and baseless.”

What unfortunately the Ministry hasfailed to address is the fact that, if indeed,there is no framework to address issues fora failing and a sinking airline, will itcontinue to watch the fun and let the airlinecollapse or will it get its act together andprovide a framework? In the last severalmonths, the dynamic Mr Ajit Singh hasprovided a framework for several issuesthat were long in the works. He sorted outthe ATG tangle, issued a framework for theinfamous ‘first right of refusal’ thatgoverned all Air India flights overseas andsaid that he was setting up a framework formore PPP interventions in the airport sector.So, why is he coy when it comes tohandling the mess at Kingfisher?

One of the reasons why we have aMinistry for Civil Aviation is that it canprovide a set of guidelines and gently directthe sector from time to time. In effect,provide a vibrant and dynamic leadership tothe aviation business in this country. It isdistressing that one of the country’s best-known airlines is sinking beyondredemption within years of its arrival andthe government continues to wait and watchand take guidance from the tweets of DrVijay Mallya.

When the infamous Kandahar hijackingtook place, the government discovered to itshorror that it virtually had no system inplace to deal with a disaster of the sort thatit was saddled with. There was literally noframework, no systems, no StandardOperating Procedures (SOP) in place. Postthe hijack, some of the cobwebs werecleared and systems were put in place.

Is Mr Ajit Singh waiting for aKandahar-like episode in the case ofKingfisher before he thinks of aframework? Or, would the smart thing be tocreate the framework to deal with failingairlines that are most certainly a safetyhazard. After all, if pilots and engineersaren’t being paid, it needs no SherlockHolmes to deduce that even suppliers wouldbe getting the short shrift and maintenancewould have gone for a toss.

For the 74-year-old Kharagpur-trainedengineer that should be a commonsensedecision to take.

K Srinivasan

Seeking a framework

[email protected]

QUALITY DELIVERY AT A STEADY BEAT. THAT'S WHAT LOW-COST CARRIER

INDIGO IS ALL ABOUT. FROM ITS FIRST FLIGHT ON 4 AUGUST, 2006, THE

CARRIER HAS CLIMBED TO BECOME THE NO 1 AIRLINE IN THE COUNTRY—

BEATING HEAVYWEIGHTS AIR INDIA AND JET AIRWAYS. LED BY AN ALMOST

INVISIBLE RAHUL BHATIA AND HIS EQUALLY RETICENT CEO ADITYA GHOSH,

INDIGO HAS CREATED A NICHE FOR ITSELF WITH ITS ON-TIME PERFORMANCE

AND ITS INNOVATIVE FACILITIES. CRUISING HEIGHTS TRACES THE RISE OF THE

CARRIER AND FINDS OUT WHY IT IS SO POPULAR AMONG FLYERS.

contents


Off

the

cuf

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NEWS DIGEST p16Jet Airways has, after a long time,managed to post profits in Q1 ashas low-cost carrier SpiceJet. Thegovernment has refused to enter-tain increase in bilateral entitle-ments sought by top Gulf carriers.Plus: Patna airport’s problems.

BIZ AVIATION p44The general aviation sector is show-ing signs of revival: business jetsales have increased in the year end-ing June 2012. Plus: Two major sur-veys have put Embraer ExecutiveJets among the top three companiesin the aviation industry.

Airports for groceriesBrits who take long holidays abroadwill have reason to smile as Tescohas taken a leap to fulfill theirdemands of providing them groceriessoon after they get home. Theseholiday-makers will be able tochoose their groceries at the airportand the groceries will be delivered attheir doorstep once they get backhome putting an end to the trouble oftrudging to the supermarket or theneighbourhood store after returninghome.

UK’s online grocery store Tesco,the world’s third biggest retailer,recently introduced the firstinteractive virtual grocery storelocated in the departure lounge ofGatwick Airport. Tesco allowedcustomers to tap on four interactivescreens on large virtual fridges thatone can slide to expose shelves witha collection of 80 products.

One merely had to scan an item’sbarcode with a smartphone for thebasket of goods to be deliveredhome. “When we came up with theidea for the virtual store at Gatwick,we really wanted to provide a helpfulservice for busy families,” Tesco.comSenior Marketing Manager MandyMinichiello said in a statement.

The Tesco store comes close onthe heels of the first virtual storelaunched — also by Tesco — lastyear in South Korea. Tesco’s InternetRetailing Director Ken Towleexemplified in a statement: "Ourbusiness in Korea has taught us a lotabout how customers and technologyare transforming shopping. It givesus a unique opportunity into thefuture and the chance to try outexciting new concepts.”

"The virtual store bringstogether our love of browsing withthe convenience of online shopping.It’s an opportunity to demonstratewhat we can do to the 30,000 peoplea day who depart from Gatwick’sNorth Terminal, many of whom willneed to fill their fridges before theyget home, and we’re looking forwardto hearing what they perceive aboutthe concept,” Towle added.

4

INDIA IS IN MOOD INDIGO p32


Editor-in-ChiefK SRINIVASAN

Managing EditorTIRTHANKAR GHOSH

Group Consulting EditorR KRISHNAN

Consulting EditorNANDU MANJESHWAR

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CRUISING HEIGHTS

CHOPPERS p39The Sikorsky-Tata Group joint venture has fructified:the S-92 helicopter with the airframe made by theTata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL) in Hyderabadtook to the air when it was delivered to LiderAviacao of Brazil. Plus: An interview with Sikorsky’sBob Kokorda, Vice President, Sales & Marketing.

NET EXPRESS p49Amadeus has announced that the low-cost carrierSpiceJet would now be available to users ofAmadeus e-Travel Management (AeTM), Amadeus’online mult-global distribution system corporatebooking tool. Also a look at how iPads are beingused in a number of ways by airlines and airports.

Volume VII � No 5

contentsARTICLES NEWS VIEWS EDITS INTERVIEWS CLIPPINGS

PROFILES NEWS DIGEST

TURF WARS READY TO RING THE CURTAIN DOWN ON PATNA AIRPORT Pg 30

CRUISING HEIGHTS

Jet claws

back to blackNaresh Goyal’s Jet Airways and Jetlite

are once again in profits after

five successive quarters of losses

Sorry, no more flights

Civil Aviation ministry turns down requests from

Gulf carriers for seats and destinations to create

a level playing field for Indian carriers

A model of a modern global airline, low-cost carrier IndiGo’s slow and

steady climb to the top has come through quality, team work and an

almost invisible leadership.

GO India,GO!SEPTEMBER 2012 I `90www.cruisingheights.in

Cover Photo: H C Tiwari

Cover Design: Artworks

CARGO p55Saudia Cargo is upbeat about India and it isbanking on its bold and visionary policy to gainthe marketshare it deserves from the region.Plus: While air cargo infrastructure receives aboost in a number of cities in the country, adynamic parcel service which promises same-day delivery is on the verge of being launched.

SNIPPETS p68 While IndiGo has introducedtwo new flights to Dubai —from Hyderabad and Delhi —in its network, GoAir is keen toincrease its presence in theNorth and the South and in theWest, Deccan Shuttle haslaunched daily charter flightsconnecting key economiccentres of Gujarat.

BACK PAGE p74Rabia Fatehully has created arecord of sorts: She was thefirst Indian woman to fly in her‘trademark’ sari and stillremains the only one to havedone so.

The total number of pages in this issue: 72+4

8

The cover story on the Farn-brough Air Show, Show Stop-per (Cruising Heights, August2012) made a very interestingreading. The fact that the air-show was successful despite aEurozone crisis and saw dealsconducted to the tune of $72billion, bears testimony to thefact that there is light at the

end of the aviation tunnel. This was an event thatwas of great significance to the entire industry.

Chiranjeev via email

The Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL)imposing high penalty charges on non-Mumbai pri-vate aircraft for overstaying their allotted time,Penalty charges by MIAL leave BAOA livid (Cruis-ing Heights, August 2012) at parking bays hasbrought a very important issue before us: Can a pri-vate company be authorised to levy such penalties? Iam certain the users of private jets do not park theirplanes for the fun of it!

Laxmi Vaidyanathan, Mumbai

No more lost bags, thank you SITA (CruisingHeights, August 2012) should bring joy to thousandsof international travellers. Anyone who has lost abag on a flight can understand the trauma it causes.Today, when IT specialist SITA has worked out asoftware that eliminates lost bags, it must be praised.Not only would the travelling public be benefitedbut also the airlines that have been shelling out com-pensation in thousands of dollars.

D Patel, Ahmedabad

Spell-bounded, astonished! These are the best termsto explain what we felt as a reader after learningabout the phenomenally-talented genius Yves Rossy.His ability to turn literally into a flying machinecomparable to jet, prove the potential of man chan-nelizing his/her energies in the right direction.

Divya Shrivastava, Gwalior

All correspondence may be addressed toEditor, Cruising Heights, D-11 Basement, Nizamuddin (East),New Delhi -13, OR mail to [email protected].

LETTERS TO EDITOR


www.cruisingheights.in AUGUST 2012 I `90

TONY TYLER ON BUILDING A SUCCESSFUL INDIAN AVIATION SECTOR

Moves are on to pull thecurtains down on the country’stop airports operator

Induction of Dreamliners and thepilots’ strike have all but broughtthe Maharaja to his knees

Stakeholders demand moreair cargo stations near majorairports in the country

Pg 12

CRUISING HEIGHTSAir India’sdelayed dream

AFS to therescue?

Troubled futureahead for AAI

Despite fears that the global downturn would have its impact onFarnborough 2012, the air show beat all expectations and even

recorded quite a few orders

Whata show!

N0 PARKING,

SAYS

MIAL“Profit and loss“I am not so sure that an increase infees charged by airport operators resultsin higher revenues.”

GoAir CEO GIORGIO DE RONI on the airport development feescharged by airport operators in India.

More power to the backbone“Governments around the world are recognis-ing the important role of tourism in drivingeconomic growth. Aviation is the backbone ofthe tourism industry. On an average, some 50per cent of international tourists arrive by air.”

IATA's Director General and CEO TONY TYLER on the aviation industry'scontribution to tourism.

Guru gyaan“We like to grow gradually. We don't liketo just come with a huge aeroplane anddump capacity into anybody's market.”

Chief Executive of Qatar Airways, AKBAR AL BAKER on the QatarAirways' business strategy.

Optimism in the air“Indian aviation is set for transformationalgrowth. Capa projections show airportpassenger traffic growing from 143 mil-lion in 2010-11 to 452 million by 2020-21.”

CAPA's CEO (South-Asia) KAPIL KAUL on the future projectionof Indian aviation industry.

Apolitical views “It's about time the ministry and DGCA

realise that safety of passengers is moreimportant than being politically correct.”

Member, Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council, MOHANRANGANATHAN on the safety of flyers posed by unsafe Indianairports.

Simply flying“Deccan has identified the need for reg-ular passenger air transport to connectIndia. For this gap to be bridgedDeccan has launched a first of its kindnon-scheduled daily charter air shuttleservice named Deccan Shuttles, whichwill connect all the airports in Gujarat.”

Deccan Charters Chairman G R GOPINATH on starting non-scheduled daily charter air shuttle service in Gujarat.

PERISCOPE

9

COLD STATS


LOOKING GLASS

The world's longest runways Airport-technology.com recently unveiled some of the world's longestcommercial runways. Three airports in the USA made it to top six.The runway at Denver International Airport measuring 16,000 ft longwas adjudged the longest commercial runway in the world. In thesecond place, India's Indira Gandhi International Airport pocketed thehonours while McCarran International Airport, US, bagged the thirdspot. At fourth spot, JFK International Airport, US, ruled the roostwhile the fifth spot was grabbed by New Doha International Airport,Qatar. And the last spot went to Madrid Barajas International Airport,Spain. The list:

Denver IInternational AAirport, UUS: 16R/34L runway at DenverInternational Airport, measuring 16,000 ft long, is the longest com-mercial runway in North America and also in the world. It will havethe capacity to accommodate new generation airplanes, including

the Airbus A380.Indira GGandhi IInternational AAirport, IIndia: The airport’s largestrunway measures 14,852 ft in length. McCarran IInternational AAirport, UUS: McCarran InternationalAirport has four runways — the longest runway measures14,510 ft in length and is asphalt-surfaced. JFK IInternational AAirport, UUS: The airport has a 14,500 ft run-way, making it capable of accepting large commercial airliners,such as the Airbus A380. New DDoha IInternational AAirport, QQatar: New Doha InternationalAirport has a runway measuring 14,000 ft, that is also capableof taking Airbus A380 aircraft. Madrid BBarajas IInternational AAirport, SSpain: The longest runway,designated 18R-36L is one of the largest runways in centralEurope. It measures 13,000 ft in length. “

Clear opinion “It is not for us to comment or saywhether we accept it or not. The reportwill go to the Public Accounts Committeewhich will take a decision.”

Civil Aviation Minister AJIT SINGH when asked on the CAGreport on Delhi airport. .

Pride and joy“I am very satisfied with the wonderful(Delhi) airport we have built. It hasbrought pride to India. After two yearsnow, we made good operational stabili-sations.”

Chairman, GMR Group G M RAO on the Delhi airport'sremarkable performance over the years.

ILLUS

TRAT

ION:

SAT

ISH

UPPA

DHYA

Y

As per passenger traffic data issued byIndian aviation regulator DGCA, thenumber of passengers carried by airlineswas 354.52 lakh between January and July2012 as against 348.47 lakh during thecorresponding period of the previous yearshowing the passenger traffic growth of1.74 per cent. The total number of domesticpassengers carried by scheduled domesticairlines for the month of July 2012 was45.37 lakh as against 51.08 lakh in June.

The break-up for the month of July 2012was: Air India — 8.24 lakh, Jet Airways —8.82 lakh, JetKonnect — 3.25 lakh, IndiGo— 12.26 lakh, SpiceJet — 8.08 lakh, GoAir

— 3.16 lakh and Kingfisher — 1.56 lakh.IndiGo emerged as the market leader bydethroning Jet Airways thereby garnering27 per cent of total passengers who flew inJuly. The other airlines were Jet Airways(19.4 per cent), Air India (18.2 per cent),SpiceJet (17.8 per cent), JetLite (7.2 percent), GoAir (7 per cent) and Kingfisher(3.4 per cent).

The passenger load factor in July 2012declined mainly due to the lean season. Thehighest passenger load factor was obtainedby IndiGo at 75.5 per cent (it was 86.5 percent in June), GoAir’s was 63.2 per cent(76.6 per cent in June), SpiceJet’s was 66.3

per cent (June: 80.4 per cent), Kingfisher’swas 53 per cent (June: 62.2 per cent),JetKonnect’s 71.7 per cent (June: 79.8 percent), Jet Airways’ was 67.1 per cent (June:74.2 per cent) and Air India’s was 64.7(Domestic) per cent (June: 71.3 per cent).

IndiGo led the airlines in the overall on-time performance of airlines in July 2012 atsix metro airports — Delhi, Mumbai,Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad— with 95.3 per cent. The other airlines thatfollowed were: Jet Airways and JetKonnect91.6 per cent, GoAir 90.3 per cent, SpiceJet84.3 per cent, Air India (Domestic) 81.2 percent, Kingfisher 81 per cent. The number of


TRAFFIC DATA

HAIL THEMARKETLEADER!

400

300

200

100

0

100806040200

YoY

Air India

JetAirways

JetLite Kingfisher SpiceJet GoAir IndiGo

MoM

348.4

8 71.3

64.7

74.2

67.1

79.8Seat

Facto

r(%)

71.7

62.2

5.3 80.4

66.3

76.6

63.2

86.5

75.5

355.5

2

50.37

45.37

354.42 LAKHS PASSENGERS CARRIEDBY SCHEDULED DOMESTIC AIRLINES IN

JAN-JULY 2012

PASSENGER LOAD FACTOR OF SCHEDULED DOMESTIC AIRLINES

The passenger load factor in the month of July 2012 has declined mainly due to leanseason.

2011 2012

Pax Carried (in Lakhs)

Growth - YoY (+1.74%)- MoM (-9.93%)

JUNE 2012 JULY 2012

passenger complaints recorded by scheduleddomestic airlines in July 2012 was 635. Thenumber of passenger-related complaints was1.4 per 10,000 passengers carried. JetAirways and Air India (Domestic) had thehighest passenger complaint rate of 1.9 percent while JetKonnect had 1.5, SpiceJet 1.4,Kingfisher Airlines 1.1, GoAir 1 and IndiGo0.9.

IndiGo's on-time performance atBengaluru was 95.4 per cent. The carrier'sperformance at Delhi was 94.3 per cent,Hyderabad (96.1 per cent), Chennai (93.1per cent), Kolkata (95.4 per cent) andMumbai ( 97.2 per cent). Jet Airways andJetKonnect's on-time performance atChennai was 98.8 per cent. At other'sairports it was: Kolkata (93.6 per cent),Hyderabad (91.7 per cent) and Bengaluru(89.6 per cent). The carrier’s performance atDelhi (87 per cent), and Mumbai (91.4 percent).

GoAir flies to only five of the six metroairports. The carrier's on-time performanceat Mumbai was the highest at 98.1 per cent.In the other four metros, it was: Delhi (88.4per cent), Kolkata (90.9 per cent),Bengaluru (90.9 per cent) and Chennai(87.4 per cent). Kingfisher flies to four

metros. Its on-time performance at Mumbaiwas 97.6 per cent followed by Chennai(95.9 per cent), Delhi (71.8 per cent) andBengaluru (92.3 per cent).

SpiceJet’s on-time performance atKolkata was 87.3 per cent. The carrier'sperformance at Hyderabad was 86.9 percent, Delhi (81.7 per cent), Bengaluru (82.6per cent), Mumbai (93.7 per cent) andChennai (82.9 per cent).

Air India's on-time performance atKolkata was 85.7 per cent. The carrier'slandings and take-offs at the other metroswere: Hyderabad (84.3 per cent), Bengaluru(80.2 per cent), Chennai (79.4 per cent),Delhi (77 per cent) and Mumbai (90 percent).

According to the data received by theDGCA, the overall cancellation rate offlights in July 2012 was 2 per cent. Leadingthe carriers was Kingfisher (8.2 per cent)followed by Air India (Domestic) 3.2 percent, SpiceJet (2 per cent), GoAir (1.6 percent), JetKonnect (1.6 per cent), Jet Airways(1.4 per cent) and IndiGo (0.1 per cent). Thereasons for the cancellations: Miscellaneous14 per cent, technical 41 per cent,operational 8.1 per cent, weather 16.9 percent and commercial 20 per cent.

11CRUISING HEIGHTS September 2012

100806040200

Air India(Dom)

JetAirways+Jet

Lite

Kingfisher SpiceJet GoAir IndiGo

OTP

(%)

ON-TIME PERFORMANCE (OTP) SCHEDULED DOMESTIC AIRLINES

OTP AT SIX METRO AIRPORTS

Capacity (ASKM Demand (RPKM)

81.291.6

81 84.390.3 95.3

PASSENGERS COMPLAINTS OFSCHEDULED DOMESTIC AIRLINES

IndiGoGoAir

SpiceJet

JetLite

Jet Airways

All India (DOM)

Kingfisher

0.91

1.11.41.5

0 0.5 1 1.5 2

Total

no.

of co

mplai

nts (J

uly 2

012)

: 63

5No

. of p

asse

ngeg

relat

ed co

mplai

ntspe

r 10,0

00 p

asse

nger

s car

ried

: 1.4

No. of Complaints /10,000 Pax

CAPACITY VS DEMAND

19.420.5

17.416.618.5

15.416.3

1216.8

1111.9

6.912.2

7.914.5

10.8322.9

9.55.8

0.16

-0.33-0.53

-4.46

-8.84

Jul

Aug

Sep

Year over Year

*% Change over Month

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

40*3020100

-10-20-30-40

CANCELLATION DATA OF SCHEDULEDDOMESTIC AIRLINES

*Overall Cancellation Rate in July 2012: 2.0%

Cancellation Rate (%)

IndiGo

GoAir

SpiceJet

JetLite

Jet Airways

All India (DOM)

Kingfisher

0.1

1.4

1.6

1.6

3.2

2

8.20 2 4 6 8 10

MARKET SHARE OF SCHEDULED DOMESTIC AIRLINES

IndiGo 27.0%

Go Air 7.0%

Spicejet 17.8%

Air India (DOM) 18.20%

Jet Airways 19.4%

Jet Airways + Jetlite = 26.60%

JetLite 7.20%

Kingfisher 3.4%

1.91.9

OFF THE RECORD

12 CRUISING HEIGHTS September 2012

If anyone is in any doubt aboutwho calls the shots in the Min-istry of Civil Aviation, let there

be no doubt. It is Prabhat Kumarwho continues to be listed as theDirector - Business and CountryRelations (New Delhi) of the UNAgency ICRISAT (InternationalCrop Research Institute for semi-aridtropics); at least, that’s the status atthe time of writing this piece in thelast week of August! Now how isthat Dr Prabhat Kumar-a 1985 batchcivil servant from Uttar Pradesh-con-tinues to hold a critical job as Officeron Special Duty to Civil AviationMinister Ajit Singh while stillemployed at ICRISAT is anybody’sguess. He has been travelling withthe Minister, attending to his chores,looking at confidential documentsand generally interacting with offi-

cials in the Ministry. That’s all verywell, but is there no rules for officialswhen they tell everyone else aboutall the rules in the world? That’sbeen the position for the last eightmonths - Dr Kumar continues todraw a fat UN salary (it’s rumouredto be several lakhs) and works for theCivil Aviation Ministry.

Now don’t get us wrong. Wehave no issues with Dr Kumar’s for-midable presence at the Ministry ofCivil Aviation, but when this min-istry is dealing with critical issues ofregulation, overseeing acquisition,expanding airports and generallybeefing up the systems, it surelyneeds to make sure that its own teamis beyond reproach. Just a brief chatwith other officials in the Ministrygives one an idea of the disenchant-ment and anger at the manner inwhich this issue has been dealt with.Almost everyone’s single-windowclearance is through the OSD’soffice-all files go to him, he commu-nicates the Minister’s diktats withofficials and he is a citizen without astate — at least he has chosen not toopt for one — till now.

When he first came as an OSD-the good doctor (he is an MBBSand an MBA) discovered that hecould not be an OSD since no oneabove a Director is eligible to holdthis position. Now, he happened tohave the seniority of a Joint Secre-tary. So, Minister Ajit Singh flexedevery sinew and muscle in his bodyto convince the Department of Per-sonnel and the Ministry of Financeto grant an additional post of JointSecretary for the Ministry of Civil

Aviation. This in an era whenthe Prime Minister talks of a

smaller government andpruning of the bureaucra-cy. That took severalmonths to happen. In themeanwhile, Dr PrabhatKumar continued to beon the rolls of ICRISATwhile working out of theMinister’s office at

DOCTOREDPOST

Interviews to shortlist a candi-date for Pawan Hans Heli-

copters India Ltd(PHHIL) whichhas been headless for a fewmonths now was scheduled forAugust 28.Now it’s learnt thatthe entire process has been post-poned and the interviews areunlikely for another two months.No one knows why the delay, butthe premier helicopter organisa-tion of the country continueswith ad hoc leadership till afull-time CEO can befound. This, in the silverjubilee year of its exis-tence. The present incum-bent, A K Shrivastava, aMadhya Pradesh cadreIAS officer, is holdingadditional charge of thisjob along with his dutiesas Joint Secretary in theMinistry of Civil Aviation.

A HOPPINGGAME

A K Shrivastava, CMD, PawanHans and Joint Secretary, CivilAviation

MR INVISIBLE: Dr PrabhatKumar, supposed to be Officeron Special Duty (OSD) to CivilAviation Minister Ajit Singh, butthere is no mention of him inthe MoCA website.

PHOTO: FLICKR

Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan!Finally, last month the post was creat-

ed and a series of orders were issued bythe DoPT (Department of Personnel andTraining) that saw Arun Mishra take overas the DG at the DGCA, A K Shrivastavamove from his perch as additional DG atthe DGCA to the Ministry as a Joint Sec-retary and Prashant Sukul move from hisposition as JS to be India’s representativeat ICAO (International Civil AviationOrganization). While everyone else hasjoined their posts, Dr Prabhat Kumar isscheduled to take over later in September.No one knows why this delay, but surelythere has to be some logic to it. But thepoint is: Why if everyone else was told tocomply with the orders, how is it that one

cog in the wheel still refuses to fit in?By the way, the Ministry’s second

nominee, a joint secretary level officer isalso missing on the Air India board. If onevisits the Air India website, PrashantSukul continues to be director when he isactually in his perch as India’s rep inICAO by the time this comes out in print.Clearly the automatic nomination has beenheld up so that Dr Kumar can take his timein saying ‘Ta ta’ to ICRISAT and makingup his mind on when to join the Ministry.

Dr Kumar was there at India Aviation2012 in the company of Civil AviationMinister Ajit Singh - in fact, he flew toHyderabad in the 787 Dreamliner thatlanded in the city to participate in the airshow. He has travelled on several other

occasions with the Minister (one wonderswhich department underwrites his airfare), sits in on all major meetingspresided over by the Minister and contin-ues to be on the rolls of the UN agency.

As a matter of rule, all ACC appoint-ments are supposed to be ratified andimplemented within a fortnight of theorders being issued. In this case, it is morethan a month since the ACC orders for DrKumar were issued and more than sevenmonths that he has been at the Ministrywithout any formal approval on paper.

It’s happened in the past in other casesin other ministries and it’s bound to hap-pen in this case too, that the poor secretary,K N Shrivastava, who really has nothingto do with all this, will be left to explainwhy the ACC orders were not implement-ed in time?

Meanwhile, a huge room is being pre-pared for Dr Kumar adjacent to the Min-ister’s office in keeping with his “all-rounder” duties as both OSD and JointSecretary. It is also learnt that he willsoon be taking over some of the functionsthat Prashant Sukul was dealing with - ineffect bilaterals, Air India and alliances.There is already plenty of disquiet in theMinistry over the Star Alliance push forJet, the knocking off of the first right ofrefusal for Air India, the inflight approvalfor alcohol supplies to Phoenix, thegames for the Airbus A320 acquisition...It’s a long story. We are reserving it fornext month.

OFF THE RECORD


Arun Mishra, DirectorGeneral of Civil Aviation

K N Srivastava, Civil AviationSecretary

Prashant Sukul, former JointSecretary

There is little to be said aboutNaresh Goyal. That he is a formi-

dable networker and a man who hashis pulse on all things that matter iswell known. What is, perhaps, not

well known is the fact that Goyal iswilling to walk the last mile to casehis interests. It happened on the last ofJuly — the day Dr Nasim Zaidi wasretiring as Secretary, Civil Aviationand several others too were departingfrom the Ministry to new jobs. Butsuch is the commitment of the man toJet Airways that he spent almost thewhole day at Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan inthe company of his senior officialschasing files from one room to anoth-er. Not that his interests would beaffected by the change in the team; itis simply that the man realised that itwould take one long effort to get itback on the tracks again. “You knowthat is the difference between him andthe others. He is a street fighter,” saidone official. When asked to react, onesenior private carrier honcho said: “Ireserve my comments.”

Syed Nasir Ali is an indefatigable guy.The livewire who belongs to the

Income Tax service has been a director inthe Civil Aviation Ministry for severalyears. Nasir has literally been a Jack-in-the-box handling multiple assignments.He has been a tax man, he has advisedgovernors, he been at a desk job in theMinistry and now as the newly- appoint-ed joint MD at Air India, he will overseethe implementation of the DharmadhkariReport. That’s not the point, though, onwhich some at Air India are sore withhim. If last reports are to be believed theyare preparing a PIL to challenge hisaccession to this job. “If our new boardmember, the Director (Personnel) has hadto quit the railways to join Air India, howis it that Nasir Ali can be on lien from theIT service? After all, both are ACCappointments and there has to be someuniformity in what the ministry is doing,”said one insider. One is sure Nasir willhave the answers. He has always been asmart cookie!

STREET FIGHTER EXTRAORDINAIRE SMART COOKIE

Jet Airways chief Naresh Goyal

HC TIWARI

Star Alliance bagged the Best AirlineAlliance title at the Skytrax WorldAirline Awards, winning this category forthe sixth time in the last seven years.Accepting the award, Lee Hock Lye,Vice-President (Products and Services),Star Alliance said, “This award could nothave come at a more appropriate time, aswe are celebrating Star Alliance's 15thAnniversary and we would like to thankour customers for their years of loyalty.As the results of this survey show, theover 18 million travellers who votedhave a clear alliance favourite.”

Earlier, Star Alliance was the first air-line alliance to receive the Best Alliance

Award from Skytraxwhen the category wasfirst introduced in 2005and has since held theaward six times. TheSkytrax passenger sur-vey for the 2012 awardscovered over 200 air-lines, from thelargest inter-national air-lines to smalldomestic car-riers, and measured standards across morethan 38 different items of airline front-lineproduct and service.

ALLIANCE NEWS

International Airlines Group CEO Willie Walsh said that a merger between American Airlines andUS Airways would be good for Oneworld, according to a Reuters report. Walsh told reporters aftera speech at the Washington International Aviation Club that the merger would allow Oneworldmembers, which include IAG's British Airways and Iberia, to offer customers a larger airline net-work. Said Walsh: “A small stake in American could reinforce American’s participation in theOneworld alliance, which includes British Airways, Iberia, Japan Airlines and Qantas.” The IAGCEO had commented earlier that a stronger AA not only benefited its customers, employees andshareholders but also benefited its partners.


JET SEEKSSTAR

MAS ready for oneworld

AA-US Airways merger?

Malaysia Airlines’ Senior Vice-PresidentGermal Singh Khera has said that the car-rier expected to conclude all work andofficially join the Oneworld alliance inthe first quarter of 2013 although therehad been announcements that the carrierwould join the Oneworld alliance in thefourth quarter of this year.

However, Oneworld Communicat-ions Executive Michael Blunt toldAustralian Business Traveller recently:“We have not set a firm joining date forMalaysia as yet…These things generallytake around 18 months to complete. Sofrom its invitation to join in June lastyear, that would make it late thisyear/early next.”

Blunt also said that MAS was ontrack to join by around the turn of theyear — “but we’re not 100 per cent firmyet whether that will be the GregorianNew Year or the Chinese New Year!”

Star is the best

A recently-published report in Mintpoints out that Jet Airways has sought thegovernment's permission to join StarAlliance Services.

In a letter to the then Civil AviationSecretary Dr Nasim Zaidi, RajSivakumar, Jet Airways Senior Vice-President, Planning and Alliance, wrote:“In order to build the right global part-nership and to support our future expan-sion plans, Jet has been evaluating thepotential of joining a global alliance.We are pleased to inform you that wehave made the decision to join StarAlliance.”

The letter also requests the ministry’sapproval to join the alliance since “thiswould allow us to complete the compre-hensive integration process as soon as

possible in order to be better prepared forour planned international expansion”.

On its part, Star too was interested inJet’s membership. Mark Schwab, CEOStar Alliance, sent a letter to JetAirways’ chief Naresh Goyal saying, “Iam writing to confirm the interest of ourmembers in naming Jet Airways in StarAlliance. Our members feel that themembership of Jet Airways in Starwould be of mutual interest to them andJet Airways, evidenced by the continu-ing discussions over several years. Wetrust that you share the same view.”

IAG CEOWillie Walsh

Star Alliance CEO Mark Schwab


NEWS DIGEST

International AirlinesGroup (IAG), the owner ofBritish Airways andSpanish airline Iberia, isseriously consideringtaking a stake in AmericanAirlines (AA). ‘’It issomething we wouldconsider,’’ an IAGspokeswoman said

confirmingwhat IAGboss WillieWalsh had

said. According to Walsh,a small stake in Americanwould reinforceAmerican’s participationin the Oneworld alliancethat includes BritishAirways, Iberia, JapanAirlines and Qantas.Incidentally, BritishAirways had a jointventure with American onNorth Atlantic flights andIAG was ready to buy astake ‘’if we can make thecase that there is additionalstrategic value to beachieved’’, said Walsh.

AA is presently goingthrough a reorganisationprocess after it filed forbankruptcy. Walsh, in fact,had said that AA wouldbecome a stronger airline.

Canada’s fetish for two official languages — English andFrench — has put the country’s eight airports at‘attention’. A watchdog body under Official LanguagesCommissioner Graham Fraser has gone undercover toensure if travellers were being served equally in Englishand French.

Fraser said his office would conduct more than 1,500anonymous observations at airports in Halifax, QuebecCity, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton andVancouver to check out whether both the languages weredisplayed or not. “I’ve been interested in the languagerights of the travelling public really throu-ghout mymandate,” Fraser was quoted. The Commissi-oner wasinterested in checking out Air Canada about which he hadreceived a number of complaints.

The Commissioner will find out if signs were in bothofficial languages, if staff were offering a bilingualgreeting to travellers and if services were available inFrench in predominantly English-speaking parts of thecountry and in English in French-speaking areas.

Air Canada, beware the language!

Boeing-Comac push for biofuel Boeing and China’sComac opened anew joint-venturefacility in Beijingrecently to studybiofuels refinementand improvementsto air trafficmanagement. Itsfirst projectinvolves a study ofthe prospects for

refining-used cooking oil into sustainable aviation biofuel. Fundedby both companies and part of Comac’s new Beijing AeronauticalScience and Research Institute, the Boeing-Comac AviationEnergy Conservation and Emissions Reductions TechnologyCenter collaborates with Chinese universities and researchinstitutions on both sustainable energy and efforts to improve ATMefficiency.

The Boeing-Comac Technology Center’s first research projectaims to identify contaminants in cooking oil and processes meantto treat and clean it for use as jet fuel. China consumesapproximately 29 million tonnes of cooking oil annually, while itsaviation system uses 20 million tonnes of jet fuel. Finding ways toconvert the discarded cooking oil into jet fuel could enhanceregional biofuel supplies and improve biofuel’s affordability,according to Boeing.

Walsh looksfor a slice ofAmerican

Routes Asia will be held inKuching, the capital of theMalaysian state of Sarawak, in2014. It will be jointly hostedby Sarawak Tourism Board andMalaysia Airports HoldingsBerhad. This will be the fifthtime that a Routes event willtake place in Malaysia. In 2003,the first Routes Asia event, alsothe first-ever Routes regionalevent, was held in Sepang,hosted by Malaysia AirportsHoldings Berhad, that hostedRoutes Asia for the followingtwo years and World Routes2008 in Kuala Lumpur. Sincethose early days, Routes Asiahas become stronger and inChengdu this year, it saw 672delegates.

“We are delighted thatRoutes Asia will be in Sarawakin 2014,” said David Stroud,Executive Vice President, UBMAviation Routes, continuing,“Our regional events began inMalaysia almost 10 years ago,and once again the passion andcommitment of the airport andstakeholders impressed ourselection team. Sarawak,though, will offer delegates anexperience like no other, a real‘once-in-a-lifetime’ locationunlike any place we have everheld a Routes event; a stunningchoice for the 12th Routes Asiaevent.”

Tan Sri Bashir Ahmad,Managing Director of MalaysiaAirports Holdings Berhad,commented: “We are delightedthat Routes Asia will once againreach Malaysia in 2014.”

Routes Asia tobe held atSarawak

Southampton Airport has become the first airport in the world withchewing gum recycling bins. According to Airport Managing DirectorDave Lees, 25 pink Gumdrop bins have been put around the airport inan effort to get rid of gum “splattered on the floor”.

A brainchild of Anna Bullus, the idea of recycling chewing gumwas conceived when she was at university. Today, the bins are emptiedand the gum is recycled to produce car tyres, toys and mobile phonecovers. Bullus said that cleaning chewing gum entailed a huge amountof taxpayers’ money.

Yes, Southampton is recycling chewing gum

Singapore Airlines has appointedrenowned architectural and interiordesign firm Ong & Ong to develop anew design concept to be applied to allof the airline’s airport loungesworldwide. The appointment is part of amore than $20 million investmentprogramme in SilverKris Lounges forthe next five years intended to enhance

the travel experience of its flyers. Thenew design concept will be rolled out

progressively to the airline’s loungesfrom the middle of next year. TheSilverKris Lounge at Sydney Airportwill be the first to be fitted out with thenew design concept. Customerengagement will be a part of the designprocess, and a mix of customers will beinvolved from the initialconceptualisation to the testing andevaluation of prototypes.

“Many of our customers tell us thatthe moment they step on board aSingapore Airlines aircraft, they feel animmediate sense of ‘home’. We hope toreplicate that ‘home away from home’experience in our lounges, along withthe warm Asian hospitality thatSingapore Airlines is renowned for,”said SIA’s Senior Vice PresidentProduct & Services, Tan Pee Teck.

Singapore Airlines has 15 SilverKrisLounges at airports around the world,inclusive of new lounges at Delhi andSeoul airports.

SIA for new lounges

Etihad Airways is interested in buyingRyanair’s near 30 per cent stake in AerLingus. Etihad chief James Hogan saidthat his airline, which already ownsthree per cent of Aer Lingus, would be“very happy to have thatdiscussion…Dublin is a strong,profitable route for us and we’revery keen to strengthen ourpartnership there”.

Etihad has also held talksabout buying out the government’s25 per cent stake in Aer Lingus asit invests in overseas airlines tohelp bolster traffic through its AbuDhabi hub. Etihad has invested inAir Berlin, Virgin AustraliaHoldings and Air Seychelles, aswell as secured 36 codeshareagreements, to assemble a globalnetwork. The Etihad bid will pit it

directly against Ryanair. Incidentally,Ryanair’s offer to pick up a stake in AerLingus has been criticised and has evenprompted a review by European Unionregulators, who blocked a similartakeover in 2006.

Etihad’s global ambition

Qatar Airway’ cabin crew and conciergestaff at the airline’s Premium Terminal atDoha International Airport and PremiumLounge at London Heathrow have beengiven iPads to provide passengers withflight data and other information. Theairline’s app provides access to customerinformation and alerts the crew andconcierge staff of special meal or service

requirements, and an interactive seat maphighlights the presence of VIPs andPrivilege Club members on board. Theairline plans to extend its tablet servicesto include on-board Privilege Clubenrolment and introduce value-addedservices for the redemption of Qmiles forupgrades and purchase of duty-free itemsinflight (see also pages 50 and 51).

Qatar’s crew armed with iPads


27.9NEWS DIGEST

162.4

17

BREAKING RECORDSAccording to Dubai Airports’ traffic report,Dubai International recorded the busiest firsthalf in its history with 27.9 million passengerspassing through its three terminals betweenJanuary and June this year. The traffic reached27,931,639 passengers in H1 2012, up 13.7per cent from 24,567,818 in the year-ago peri-od. The average monthly passenger trafficrecorded in the first six months of the yearstood at 4.65 million compared to 4.09 millionin the same period of 2011, the report said.“We are on track to meet the annual projectedtraffic of 56.5 million passengers, which willbring us very close to Dubai International’soperational capacity of 60 million passengersper annum. The addition of Concourse 3 dur-ing the first quarter of 2013 is well timed toboost our capacity to 75 million while uppingthe game on our already high levels of cus-tomer service,” said Paul Griffiths, CEO,Dubai Airports.

NEW JETS FOR SILKAIRSilkAir recently said that it would order 54 Boeing 737 jets worth $4.9 billionat list prices and would be the biggest order in its history. The airline said ithad signed a letter of intent that included purchase rights for another 14planes. Financial terms were not disclosed.

SilkAir plans to order 23 Boeing 737-800 aircraft and 31 of the Boeing737 Max that is expected to replace the current 737 models in a few years.The planes will be delivered from 2014 into 2021. “We continue to see verystrong growth within the region and these new aircraft will position SilkAirwell. They will enable us to spread our wings to even more destinations andincrease capacity on existing routes,” said Mervin Tan, the Chief Executive ofSilkAir.

HEAVY PENALTYAmerican Airlines may face the biggest punishment everpursued by the Federal Aviation Administration for safe-ty violations. The airline may face a whopping $162.4million in fines, according to documents filed by theagency with the US Bankruptcy Court overseeingAmerican Airlines’ reorganisation. “The documentsdetail both proposed and potential civil penalties in con-nection with ongoing enforcement cases involving bothAmerican Airlines and American Eagle,” the agency saidin a statement. “Because these cases remain open, theFAA cannot discuss the details of the individual investi-gations.”

American is aware of the FAA’s potential claims.Michael Trevino, a spokesman for American Airlines,said in an e-mailed statement: “The claims process is aroutine part of any Chapter 11 filing.”

SEEING REDKingfisher Airlines’ net loss widened two-and-a-half times to `650.78 crore for thequarter ended 30 June 2012 against a`263.53 crore net loss in the correspondingquarter a year ago. Curtailed network opera-tions led to an 84.19 per cent decrease intotal sales at `301.38 crore for the reportingquarter against `1,907.01 crore for the corre-sponding quarter a year ago.

A media statement said the impact ofhigh fuel costs, high interest rates, the depre-ciation of the Indian rupee, and extraordinaryexpenses on account of the return of aircraftto lessors and costs associated with non-operating aircraft resulted in losses.“Kingfisher continues to believe it will getrecapitalised and get on a path of sustainedprofitability. The airline is in discussionswith several strategic and financial investorsto bring fresh capital. In Q1 FY13,Kingfisher halved its operating losses to`204 crore from `429 crore in Q1 FY12.This was achieved by reducing the level ofoperations in this high cost environmentthrough a 20-aircraft-holding operation,”Kingfisher said.

BACK WITH A BANGAsia Pacific airlines carried 17.0million international passengers inJune, a healthy rise of +8.5 percent over a year earlier, accordingto the Association of Asia PacificAirlines (AAPA). In revenue pas-senger kilometre (RPK) terms,international passenger trafficgrew by +8.1 per cent, outpacingthe +4.3 per cent expansion in

available seat capacity, resulting in a 2.8 percentage point increasein the average international passenger load factor to 80.2 per centfor the month. AAPA Director General Andrew Herdman said,“For the first half of 2012, Asia Pacific airlines recorded anencouraging +8.7 per cent increase in the number of internationalpassengers carried, supported by relatively strong regional mar-kets, despite wider concerns about weaker prospects for the globaleconomy.”

54

Adding

upthe numbers

650



NEWS DIGEST

After a long time, Jet Airways seems to be breathing freshair. The carrier posted a profit of `24.70 crore in the firstquarter (Q1) April-June of the current financial year 2012-

13 against a loss of `123.16 crore in the first quarter of the previ-ous financial year (2011-12). The profits in the current Q1 comesafter five successive quarters of losses. Jet Airways delivered astrong operating performance in Q1 2012-13 with standalone prof-its (excluding Jetlite) rising by 112.16 per cent to `740 crore. Thiscame on the back of a strong revenue growth of 30 per cent whichwas 25 per cent and 13 per cent higher than Q3 and Q4 of the pre-vious financial year (2011-12), respectively.

Normally Q2 is considered to be a dull time for airlines whileQ3 and Q4 are traditionally more profitable when compared to Q1.However, high interest costs and aircraft lease rentals shrunk thenet profit to `24.70 crore. Jet said better yields along with increasein demand and stringent cost control measures helped the airlinepost net profit. While these arguments may be true to a large extent,the fact remains that because of a 200 per cent rise in year-on-year‘other income’, the net profit became a reality in Q1 2012-13.About two-fifths of the ‘other income’includes profit on sale andleaseback of aircraft — a facility or opportunity that may not pres-ent itself year after year.

The carrier’s main concern seems to be its high debt which isover `13,000 crore. Long term borrowings or non-current liabili-ties stood at `9995 crore and this was far higher than share-hold-ers’funds which was only `1300 crore. Jet Airways’market capi-talisation was also lower at `3229 crore. Thus, it is evident thatunless the airline continuously manages to post much higher rev-enues, yields, and control costs further, the present high debt willmean higher cost and, therefore, depress profits.

Another silver lining for the airline was that its subsidiaryJetlite also returned to profitability posting a net profit of `11.7crore in the first quarter compared to a net loss of `5.2 crore in thesame quarter of the previous year. The total income of Jet Airwaysduring Q1 2012-13 was `4587.27 crore compared to `4041.61crore and `3541.60 crore in Q4 and Q1 of the financial year 2011-12. During the same period, income from operation in Q1 rose to

`4344.92 crore compared to`3842.38 crore and `3320.93crore.

The balance was the otheroperating income which was`242.35 crore, `199.23 crore and`220.67 crore for the three quar-ters mentioned above. Comparedto this, the total expenses duringQ1 20112-13 was ̀ 4363.73 croreas against `4164.72 crore in Q42011-12 and `3624.58 crore inQ1 2011-12, respectively.

In these three quarters men-tioned above the aircraft fuelexpenses were `1967.41 crore,`1822.46 crore and `1563.69crore; aircraft lease rentals`275.57 crore, `244.12 crore and`207.25 crores; employee remu-neration and benefits `401.71

crore, `410.74 crore and `360.65crore, respectively. The depreciation

and amortization head accounted for `240.36 crore, `248.81 croreand `223.47 crore in the three quarters namely Q1 20112-13, Q42011-12 and Q1 2011-12, respectively. During these comparativequarters the selling and distribution expenses accounted for`374.10 crore, `337.83 crore and `339.38 crore while otherexpenses were `1104.58 crore, `1100.76 crore and `930.14 crore,respectively.

Significantly both domestic and international operations post-ed much higher revenues. In the case of domestic, during Q1 2-12-13 the revenues were `1985.39 crore compared to `1736.50 croreand `1513.32 crore in Q4 and Q1 of last financial year 2011-12,respectively. International operations revenue during these threequarters beginning Q1 2012-13 were `2601.88 crore, `2305.11crore and `2028.28 crore. The total revenue earned by Jet Airwaysduring Q1 2012-13 was `4587.27 crore compared to `4041.61crore and `3541.60 crore, respectively in Q4 and Q1 2011-12.Profits after tax during these quarters was `24.70 crore for Q12012-13 compared to losses of `298.12 crore in Q4 and `123.16crore in Q1 of previous fiscal 2011-12. It may be mentioned herethat income from leasing of aircraft by Jet Airways earned it`116.74 crore in Q1 2012-13 as against `136.68 crore in Q1 and`110.71 crore in Q4 of 2011-12. For the full financial year of 2011-12 the income from leasing of its Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft was`452.12 crore. During Q1 2012-13 sale and lease back of aircraftand engines brought in for Jet Airways `52.37 crore and `76.09crore, respectively.

The combined revenue of Jet Airways -- that is includingJetlite — was `5274.80 crore during Q1 2012-13 which was 31.24per cent higher on a year-on-year basis. Jet Airways domestic yieldwas up by 9 per cent while that of Jetlite was up by 43.2 per cent.In domestic operations, passenger growth was 10 per cent year onyear as against industry average growth was only one per cent.EBITDAR during this quarter was high at `825.5 crore as against`330 crore in the comparative quarter of previous fiscal 2011-12.This showed a rise of 147.9 per cent. For Jet Airways, the system-wide ASKM was 10285 million — a 10.4 per cent rise — while theRPKM of 8502 million showed an increase of 16.3 per cent and

JET IS BACK IN THE BLACK

BREATHING EASY: Chairman of Jet Airways, Naresh Goyal, during a media interaction

HC T

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seat factor was higher at 82.7 per cent com-pared to 78.5 per cent in Q1 of last fiscal.During April-June 2012-13 quarter JetAirways carried 4.86 million passengerswhich was up by 19.5 per cent.

In the case of JetLite, its seat factorwas actually lower at 79.3 per cent com-pared to 80.1 per cent of Q1 2011-12. Butstill revenue was higher at `563.20 crorecompared to `432.10 crore due to rise inyield. Jetlite, now Jet Konnect, more thanbenefitted from the demand-supply equi-librium following the virtual demise ofKingfisher Airlines and its serious shrink-ing of its fleet. Like other LCCs even JetKonnect reaped higher fares and evenhigher yields. Besides, the trimming ofJetLite network lowered the cost by reduc-ing bases and increased yields. JetLite’srebranding as Jet Konnect and introductionof eight business class seats in its reconfig-ured aircraft helped in consolidating yieldsfurther upwards. The revenues were upeven as departures shrunk. JetLiteaccounted for one third of Jet’s profits. ForJet Airways, domestic operations account-ed for 44 per cent of the total revenues. AJet Airways statement noted that Q2 2012-13 will reflect the seasonality in seat fac-tors though yields are expected to remainstrong. The industrycapacity growth isexpected to be verymodest (less than 5 percent for the year as awhole) and this willresult in the overallyields and seat factorsremaining stable.

As for internationalloads they remain highin Q2 (July-September)2012-12 reflecting thehigh seasonal factor orrather a high season. Aspart of route rationalisa-tion, Jet Airways duringMay and June 2012reduced or suspended flights to Sharjah,Riyadh, Colombo, Kuala Lumpur andJohannesburg. It added new flights toBangkok, Dubai and Kuwait. Jet’s interna-tional routes which contribute 56 per centof the overall revenue of the airline sawhigh growth both in loads and yields dur-ing Q1 2012-13. In the whole of the cur-rent fiscal 2012-13, Jet expects that bywithdrawing unprofitable routes it wouldlead to a saving of between `110 crore and`137 crore. Efforts to reduce costs (ex-fuel) including route rationalisation, con-tract re-negotiation, productivity improve-ments, etc. will help Jet to improve operat-ing margins and these have started show-ing up. The cost per ASKM (ex-fuel) has

remained flattish despite an increase inROE of around 24 per cent year on year.

Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyaltold the company’s AGM in Mumbai earlyAugust 2012 that his airline would retirearound `500 crore of its nearly `14000crore debt in the current financial year2012-13. At the same time it will have toraise at least `1100 crore to improve thebalance sheet. “We are planning to retirearound $400 million of our $2.5 billiondebt this fiscal. Along with this we alsoneed around $180 million to improve ourbalance sheet. We will achieve this throughsale and sale and lease back of someplanes”. As much as 80 per cent of the air-line’s debt is asset backed and dollardenominated. About 14 per cent of thisdebt is short term working capital fundswhich the airline plans to repay from oper-ational revenue through the year. DuringQ1 2012-13, Jet sold four of its old 737-700s and two engines. It is also planning tosell and lease back eight to nine of its nar-row-body 737 aircraft in the coming quar-ters. Another strategy is to shore up toplineby doubling the income from its ancillaryor non-ticket revenues over the next twoand half quarters. Goyal said no new inter-national destination would be launched

this fiscal. Jet CEO Nikos

Kardassis said: “Fuelcost increase, deprecia-tion of the rupeeweighed heavily on theindustry’s profitability.ATF was 13 per centhigher than in Q1 2011and 3 per cent higherthan Q4 2011-2012.During Q1, Jet spent`1967 crore on fuel. Hesaid fuel prices had comeoff from a high of $120per barrel to between$100 and $105 per bar-rel. But the rupeedropped from `44.70 to

`55.65 to the dollar during the quarterunder review year-on -year basis. This 24per cent depreciation exerted pressure onJet’s dollar-denominated costs. Despitehaving a natural hedge because of the USdollar denominated earnings, Jet had torecognise forex loses to the extent of`170.3 crore in Q1 2012-13 on account ofexchange rate fluctuation. But, on the otherhand, Jet’s earnings were lifted by otherincome of `124 crore. Kardassis said whilethe airline’s earnings exceeded expecta-tion, sustaining the performance would bedifficult as challenges include higher usercharges at Delhi’s T3 and finding room toincrease fares further. In an outlook state-

ODISHA PLANS FIVE NEW AIRPORTSThe Odisha government has proposed

to develop greenfield airports in five

locations in an effort to boost intra-state

and inter-state civil aviation facilities. The

five airports would come up in the

industrial hubs of Rayagada, Paradip,

Dhamara, Angul and Kalinganagar, a

senior official said, adding that proposals

were also on the anvil to upgrade exist-

ing airfields at Gopalpur, Jharsuguda,

Barbil and Rourkela.

The state-owned IPICOL, in associa-

tion with the Civil Aviation Department,

has initiated a roadmap for facilitating

investment in aviation-related activities

to boost intra and inter-state trade and

tourism. “A roadmap has been prepared

for a period of 10 years from 2012-13 to

2022-23. The proposed areas of develop-

ment range from creation of night park-

ing facility and hinterland connectivity

to establishment of aero city and refu-

elling hub,” the official said.

The state also set a target of creating

domestic terminal and connectivity, set-

ting-up of aviation training institutes,

operationalisation of international flight,

development of cargo hub and airline

base, the sources said.

MOHALI TO BE READY WITHIN 16 MONTHSFor easy connectivi-

ty to Punjab,

Deputy Chief

Minister Sukhbir

Singh Badal said

that award for con-

struction of Mohali

airport had been

given to a multina-

tional company and airport terminal

would be ready within 16 months. He

was speaking after unfurling tricolor on

Independence Day function held at

Government College. Punjab govern-

ment has already acquired land for

expansion of Ludhiana airport and latest

state-of-the-art night landing instrumen-

ABOVE GROUND LEVEL ¨¨

`5275 crCombined revenue

of Jet Airways,including JetLite

ODISHA

Sukhbir SinghBadal

CRUISING HEIGHTS September 2012 25

tation have been already installed at air-

port. He said that with the expansion of

Ludhiana airport Boeing-320 planes could

be able to land at Ludhiana airport.

Domestic flights from Bathinda air-

port would start next month and Punjab

government has already approached

Union government to allow civil flights

from Adampur Army Airport. Badal said

that with the completion of all these air-

ports, Punjab would be the only state in

the country that would have international

airports at the distance of every 60 km.

NOW, VISA ON ARRIVAL AT TRIVANDRUMThe Trivandrum International Airport will

be issuing Tourist Visa on Arrival (T-VoA)

to travellers from Finland, Japan,

Luxembourg, New Zealand, Singapore,

Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos,

Myanmar and Indonesia. The Ministry of

External Affairs has approved the visa for

visitors from France, Germany and Russia,

while a nod from the Bureau of

Immigration (BOI), which functions under

the Ministry of Home Affairsis awaited,

according to a report.

Those applying for the visa should neither

ABOVE GROUND LEVEL ¨¨ment, Jet said, “Higher crude prices, rupeedepreciation, economic slowdown tillimpact operating margin in the short run.Domestic traffic trends in Q2 will reflectseasonality in seat factors though yieldswould continue to be strong. During Q22012-13, the airlines intends to completetransactions for another 8 to 9 narrowbodyunder the sale and lease back. This willhelp it reduce balance sheet debt andrelease cash.

In view of these fac-tors impinging on revenueearnings and hence onprofitability, Jet Airwaysis looking to increase itsancillary revenue by near-ly $300 million and tapbusiness opportunities inloyalty programme man-agement and cabin crewand pilot training. The air-line earned $170 million in ancillary rev-enue during the last fiscal 2011-12. Suchrevenue typically includes on-board sales,advertising, fee on baggage, etc. At theAGM, Jet management secured share-hold-ers’approval to create a company to man-age loyalty programme and start a crewtraining academy. At present the airline isearning around $3 to 3.5 per passenger asancillary revenue and would like this to

increase to $8 to 9 in a year. Jet AirwaysVice President Commercial Strategy andInvestor Relations, KG Vishwanath saidthe loyalty management business wouldgive it a new distribution channel and helpincrease yields. At present Jet runs in-houseJet Privilege FFP. He said today 85 to 90per cent of miles accrual happens becauseof flying. That ratio will change with theaddition of new programme partne` astransactions other than flying will generate

miles. All the accrualswill start happeningtowards the partner’s sidebut redemption will hap-pen on Jet Airways side.It will become a largerretail based loyalty pro-gramme to unlock com-mercial value. This waythe outsourcing will helpJet clean its balance sheet

or that of the parent organization and trans-fer the programme management and liabil-ity to the new company. Vishwanath furthersaid the airline is phasing out expat pilotsand pulling out of loss making routes, re-negotiating all contracts with vendo` andshowing up ancillary revenue. Jet has 220high cost expat pilots and intends to bringthe number down to 50 by the end of 2012.“We are planning to bring the unit cost

`171 crJet airways forex

losses in Q12012-2013

Spicejet reported a profit after tax of`56.15 crore for Q1 2012-13 asagainst a loss of `71.96 crore for the

same quarter a year ago. In a statement, theairline said its revenue for Q1 2012-13 roseby 51 per cent to `1407 crore comparedwith `931 crore and its Average RevenuePer Passenger (ARPP) for Q1 2012-13 roseby 24 per cent to `4068 from `3283 in Q4of the previous financial year 2011-12 orJanuary-March 2012. As per its publishedunaudited results, the total income fromoperations for Q1 2012-13 was at `1466.69crore compared to `1113 crore in theimmediately preceding quarter or Q4 2011-12 and `945.64 crore in Q1 of 2011-12.While the net sales from operations was`1406.74 crore, `1102.09 crore and`930.75 crore, respectively, the airline’sother operating income was `59.94 crore,`10.09 crore and `14.88 crore for the threequarters referred to above. The totalexpenses for Q1 2012-13 was `1404.26crore compared to `1326.05 crore in Q4and `1011.92 crore in Q1 of 2011-12,respectively. The share of expenditure onATF for these three quarters was `669.67crore, `620.50 crore and`505.17 crore followedby aircraft lease rentals of`196.25 crore, `172.32crore and `131.93 crore,airport charges of `76.56crore, `73.32 crore and`56.31 crore, aircraft

maintenance charges of `134.11 crore,`172.32 crore and `99.66 crore,respectively.

With the expansion of the airlinefollowing the induction of more Q 400Bombardier turbo-prop aircraft, theemployee benefit expenses also rose to`131.34 crore in Q1 2012-13 from `127.46crore in Q4 and `76.93 crore in Q1 of2011-12, respectively. The profits fromoperations accordingly was `62.43 crorefor Q1 2012-13 compared to losses of `213crore and `66.28 crore in the previous twoquarters. Other income showed by theairlines was `12.16 crore, `7.23 crore and`3.34 crore. But profit after tax for Q12012-13 was `56.15 crore which was a firsttime profit after five quarter lossespreviously.

According to an airline statement,though load factors and yields have beenholding firm, the high cost of operationsinfluenced by a weak rupee prevented thecompany from posting better results. Thecompany’s operating results have beenmaterially affected by various factorsparticularly high ATF cost, significant fall

in rupee value vis-a-visUS Dollar, generaleconomic slowdown. Tocounter many of suchfactors, SpieceJet has beenimplementing variousmeasures such as fare androute rationalisation,

26

NEWS DIGEST

be residents of India, nor should they be

working in India. Their passports must

have minimum six-month validity. On

receipt, the T-VoA will be valid for 30 days.

According to BOI norms, the purpose of

the visit should be recreation, sightsee-

ing, or meeting friends and relatives.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI)

informed the BOI that it could allocate a

facilitation centre, an exclusive visa desk,

a foreign exchange, a holding area

counter, signboards and facilities for tak-

ing photographs of visiting foreign

nationals at the international terminal.

Trivandrum figures along with Goa and

Bengaluru on the short list of BOI for

granting T-VoA.

SOON, 24X7 CUSTOMS CLEARANCE The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has

paved the way for round-the-clock cus-

toms clearances at identified sea ports

and airports.

The four airports where the facility

would be available are Delhi, Bengaluru,

Chennai, and Mumbai; for the four ports

the locations are Chennai, Kolkata,

Kandla and JNPT and Mumbai.

The facility would be made available on

a pilot basis, with customs operations

and complementary services.

With customs clearances, other gov-

ernment agencies, such as the port or

airport authority concerned, drug con-

troller, Food Safety and Standards

Authority of India, quarantine and pri-

vate players, Customs House Agents,

banks and transporters, would also have

to work 24x7 in tandem. “This would be

initially for four months, after which

efforts would be made to expand similar

operations at other locations,” the PMO

said in a release.

AIRPORT WAITS FOR AEROBRIDGESThe new terminal of the Kolkata airport

has missed four deadlines in supply of

aerobridges that are supposed to link

the terminal directly with aircraft parking

bays. If flight operations commence at

the airport’s new terminal from October

— as committed by the Airports

Authority of India (AAI) — only seven

aerobridges will be available instead of

the 18 passageways that were actually

planned. It may take another couple of

months to install the rest.

“Officials from AAI headquarters

have just completed inspection of the

first lot of seven aerobridges in

Indonesia. Sections of the aerobridges



excluding aviation turbine fuel by 5 to 8 percent year on year. We are re-negotiating allcontracts including engine and compo-nents.”

The CCO of Jet Airways SudheerRaghavan said Jet was evaluating plans tooffer commercial pilot trarining and thereare external parties that are interested in itas they see a potential in India. Raghavansaid the Indian domestic aviation marketwill grow to 220 million by 2020 and thatboom would create requirement for addi-tional pilots, crew and ground staff.

“There is an opportunity for us to usethe value of Jet Airways brand to train avi-ation professionals”. As on March 31,2012 the promoters of Jet Airways held 80per cent of the company with Naresh Goyalholding 0.01 per cent and Tailwinds, his

offshore company owning 79.99 per cent.Institutions held 13.64 per cent and non-promoters including individual investorsheld 6 per cent. Jet Airways currentlyoperates a fleet of 103 aircraft whichincludes 10 Boeing 777-300 ER; 12 AirbusA 330-200, 61 Boeing NG 737-700,800and 900 and 20 ATR 72-500 turboprop air-craft with an average age of 6.11 years. Jethas one of the youngest fleets in the worldof aviation.

It has 74 flight destinations. About JetKonnect, the airline statement said with theconsolidation of erstwhile Jetlite and JetAirways Konnect brands, the new JetKonnect service is a dedicated productdesigned to meet the needs of the low faresegment. Jet Konnect offers also premierservice in certain select routes.

SPICED UP FORBUSINESS

`56.15 crSpiceJet’s profitafter tax for Q1

2012-13


will be packed into crates and loaded on

a freight ship for transport to Kolkata,”

Kolkata Airport Director BP Sharma said

recently.

AAI TO EXTEND ROUTES TO OTHER CITIESAfter introducing green routes between

Mumbai and Delhi, Airports Authority of

India (AAI) is now planning to introduce

similar air routes between other busy

sectors too. On July 26, AAI introduced

direct routes between Mumbai and

Delhi where aircraft could fly straight to

the destination without having to chart

its course through Ahmedabad, Jaipur

and Udaipur. The move was enabled by

the use of RNAV 5, a satellite-based com-

munication device, which helps the air-

craft keep its

path without

monitoring

from the

ground agen-

cies.

Since

most aircraft in the country are now

RNAV-equipped, AAI is planning to

extend the routes to other cities. The

direct route, according to officials, is also

a more fuel-efficient route, which will

also reduce carbon emissions. “When an

aircraft takes the direct route, it flies

faster and at the optimum altitude. This

reduces carbon emissions too,” explained

a senior AAI official. AAI is planning to

extend these direct routes to sectors

such as Delhi-Chennai, Delhi-Jaipur,

Delhi-Udaipur, Chennai-Bengaluru, etc.

ACTION AGAINST AIRPORT LITTERERS

Do not drop, litter, spit or smoke any-

where at an airport. If you do, be ready

to pay a fine. Dumping garbage on the

landside and the airside, misuse of pas-

senger baggage trolleys, rash driving

and speeding on the airport premises

and stationing of vehicles and equip-

ment in no-parking areas are among the


increa-sing aircraft utilisation, improvingoperational efficiencies, renegotia-tion ofcontracts and other cost-control measures.In addition, SpiceJet continues to explorevarious options to raise finance in order tomeet its short term and long termobligations with the promoters infusingadditional capital in the current quarter.These steps will not only result insustainable cash flows but also enhanceSpiceJet’s plans for expansion.

In a nutshell, the airlines performancein Q1 2012-13 included a 26.1 per centincrease in passengercarried, 16.7 per centrise in ASKM, 43.9 percent rise in departures,51.1 per cent increase inrevenues, 24 per centrise in yields, and profitbefore tax of `62.44crore. CEO Neil Millssaid that “while weexpand our footprint indomestic as well asinternational sectors, theexcessive taxation onATF in India and theweakening of Indian rupee compared to theUS dollar, are matters of serious concern.The sharp increase in airport charges andother levies in various forms pushed up thecost of air travel without bringingadditional revenue to the airlines”.

The auditors of Spicejet, SR Batliboi &Associates in their report to the Board ofDirectors of the airline said no provisionhad been made for interest of `7.47 croreup to June 30,2012 relating to earlier year’sinter-corporate debt taken by the company.Had the same been accounted for, theairline net profit for Q1 2012-13 wouldhave been lower by `5.97 crore. Besides,the airline has not accounted for forexdifferences on foreign currency borrowingsto the extent that they could be regarded as

an adjustment to internal cost. In theabsence of information relating to intereston comparable local borrowings, the reportsaid the auditors were unable to commenton the consequential effect on net profit forthe quarter ended June 30, 2012. As on thatdate, the airlines accumulated losses hadsubstantially eroded the net worth of thecompany. Notwithstanding such commentsand happenings, billiona-ire investorRakesh Jhunjhunwala picked up 25 lakhshares of SpiceJet at a price of `30.77 pershare for `7.7 crore between April-June

2012. The promoterMaran family owns43.59 per cent shares ofthe airline.

Bank of AmericaMerrill Lynch (BofML)in its report after the Q1results upgradedSpiceJet scrip to `42. Itsaid human resourcesproblem in KingfisherAirlines and Air Indiahelped SpiceJet to gainmarket share in Q1which went up to 18.6

per cent with daily operation of 300 flightsto 37 domestic and three internationaldestinations.

While the airline hiked fares, it alsotook delivery of 12 Q 400s which helpedestablish the airline in capturing fastgrowing Tier-II and III cities demand whichis currently underserved.

With the virtual pull out of theKingfisher fleet, SpiceJet has been able tostabilize its Q 400 fleet. In the currentfinancial year, the Bank said it expected theyields of SpiceJet to rise by 20 per cent ledby supply constraints, both due to reductionin the fleet of Kingfisher and shift ofcapacity to international routes. But themost important factor has been the pricingdiscipline across industry.

ON MOVE: Passengers at a SpiceJet check-in counter

`62.44 crprofit before tax

for SpiceJet

AWAITING AEROBRIDGES: The new terminalof the Kolkata airport

HC T

IWAR

I


NEWS DIGEST

ABOVE GROUND LEVEL ¨¨offences that will attract fines from the

Airports Authority of India (AAI) that has

issued a circular for imposing fines rang-

ing from `100 to `500.

MUMBAI T2 HAS FIRST AUTOWALK IN ASIA Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport

(CSIA), Mumbai, has been rated as the

third best airport in the world and the

second best airport in India in 2011 by

ACI in the 25-40 mn passenger capacity.

Mumbai International Airport Pvt

Limited (MIAL) is currently implementing

a master plan to build an integrated ter-

minal with a vision and framework to

modernise this airport as one of the best

airports in the world.

MIAL has installed the world’s flattest

autowalk technology at T2. The autowalk

— completed by KONE — was inaugu-

rated recently. Owing to the innovative

pallet return mechanism and a new kind

of motor solution, each KONE autowalk

is so flat that, unlike conventional solu-

tions, it can be installed entirely on the

finished floor level.

SEMINAR ON AVIATION SAFETY ATBENGALURUAs part of its commitment to promote a

culture of safety in aviation along with

implementation and strengthening of

Safety Management Systems, Bengaluru

International Airport Ltd (BIAL) organ-

ised a two-day seminar titled ‘Safety First,

Together We Can’.

The seminar was well attended with

over 120 representatives from other air-

ports, airlines, safety experts, Indian Air

Force, HAL airport, ground-handling

agencies and BIAL senior management.

It had a combination of professionals

such as pilots, ground-handling agen-

cies, aircraft maintenance engineers, reg-

ulators, airport operators, etc. across all

levels. It consisted of key safety person-

nel in aviation, responsible for planning

and implementation of SMS with an

A LEVEL PLAYINGFIELD — AT LASTAfter riding and expanding on the

huge Indian passenger base, afew top Gulf carriers sought fur-

ther increase in their bilateral entitle-ments from India to which the presentMinistry of Civil Aviation conveyed aflat ‘No’. Unlike in the past when bilat-eral entitlements were given to the likesof Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, Oman andeven Saudi Arabian airline very liberal-ly, there has been a full stop for the lastcouple of years. Breaking the lull in this,some of these Gulf-based airlinesapproached the Ministry of CivilAviation with the request for some moreentitlements. But the Ministry refused togrant more bilateral flight entitlementsto at least three of these carriers. Theyhad sought increase in the number ofseats per week or at least allow them toincrease the number of destinations inIndia they could fly to. Against nearly 10such ports of call in India, the Indiancarriers do not get more than one andrarely two destination points in the Gulf.Since there is a restriction to fly beyond,the Gulf carriers have been carryinghordes of Indians to their home basesand then flying them to variousEuropean and American destinations andat times even South East destinations.

In an interview to an Indian newspa-per recently, the CEO of Emirates, TimClark, said his airline wanted to pick uppassengers from Indian airports at least

10 times a day and was looking for anincrease in its seat entitlements to10,000 per week. He also expressed seri-ous interest in flying Emirates’Airbus A380 to India.

An internal study by the Ministry ofCivil Aviation has shown that conven-ient onward connections from the homebase of most Gulf carriers, primarilyEmirates followed by Etihad and Qatar,skimmed away 25 per cent of Indianpassengers who would have otherwisechosen an Indian port. Dubai, Doha,Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and Muscat in allaccounted for traffic diversion or leak-age — whichever way you look at it —to the extent of 5.36 million passengerseach year. This was nearly 40 per cent ofinternational traffic for India. The deci-sion of the Ministry of Civil Aviation tocounter this trend and strengthen Indiancarriers, it decided to end the monopolyof Air India in terms of first right ofrefusal and alternatively offer manymore rights to Indian private carriers aswell. Jet Airways, SpiceJet and IndiGo,besides, of course, Air India, have beenasked to furnish information aboutwhich routes they were already operat-ing overseas and how many more newflights to other destinations they wishedto operate in the next three schedules,i.e. till the summer of 2014.

The proof of this pudding wasalready available beginning this sum-

COVERING DESTINATIONS:An Emirates plane at one ofthe foreign airports

CREATING EXCELLENCE: Mumbai has beenrated as the third best airport in the world

mer. IndiGo bagged right to 28 servicesto Dubai and seven to Jeddah of the total63 new services. Its other servicesincluded 14 to Singapore, seven each toKathmandu and Bangkok. SpiceJet has14 flights to Dubai, seven to Riyadh, 14to Male and seven each to Kabul,Guangzhou, Colombo, Bangkok andHong Kong. Jet Airways is mounting 14flights to Kuwait, seven to Dubai, seveneach to Bangkok and Male, 14 toSingapore and four to Dhaka.

In a recent interview to an Indianmedia, Axel Hilgers, Lufthansa’sDirector for South Asia said at lastIndians seem to have realised that Dubaiwas the real hub of India and notDelhi which has had a devas-tating effect on Indian carri-ers while it did not hurtLufthansa or some otherEuropean carriers.

Shifting the focustowards home, it seemsthe domestic aviationmarket may continue towitness the same pricingpower which has governed thedomestic market for the last three orso quarters. Obviously, unless these air-lines -- that is whatever is left of theIndian aviation after the virtual demiseof Kingfisher Airlines and near eclips-ing of Air India following the long strikeby its foreign going pilots — there hasto be increase in revenue to at least payback the huge debt the banks are carry-ing. In a recent written answer to a ques-tion in Lok Sabha, Finance Minister PChidambaram said aviation companiesowed `40,621 crore to banks as on June2012 and of which the outstanding loanof SBI was `5000 crore. Banks dis-bursed `47.056 crore to airline compa-nies between 2009 and June 30, 2012.The total outstanding at the end of June2012 was `40,621 crore. Details of thebreak-up showed that SBI had an out-standing of `5120 crore, PunjabNational Bank `4010 crore, Bank ofBaroda `4133 crore, Canara Bank`2327 crore, IDBI Bank `2550 crore,Yes Bank `770 crore and HDFC Bank

`23 crore. In the context of such an

outstanding debt of mainlyPSU banks and a couple ofprivate banks, the need formaintaining higher fares and,therefore, higher yields hasbecome imperative for Indianprivate carriers. In fact, thefirst quarterly results for thecurrent financial year 2012-13 showed that both Jet

Airways and SpiceJet had entered theprofit zone. It is also true that unquotedor privately-held IndiGo and GoAirhave also made profits during this quar-ter and even Air India domestic hasshown substantial increase in revenuesrising on much higher domestic yieldson a comparative basis. So, better pric-ing power, higher yields and route ratio-nalisation is now the key for financiallystressed Indian carriers. Pricing powerimproved following the slower thanexpected expansion in supply or capaci-ty. True, the likes of IndiGo andSpiceJet did add to their capacity — beit narrowbody jets or narrowbody turbo-

props — but then these did notmake up for the sharp contrac-

tion in the capacity ofKingfisher Airlines whichat one time had 89 air-craft that came down to66 and now it is perhapsnot even flying morethan 10 aircraft. All this

happened in two to threeyears. According to Bank of

America Merrill Lynch, the domes-tic yields will rise further in the currentfinancial year once the lean season endsat the end of Q2 or July-September2012. Compared to earlier estimates ofyields rising by 10 per cent year on year,the expectation now is it could be ashigh as 15 per cent.

Despite a projected GDP growth ofbetween 5.5 per cent and 6 per cent,supply growth (that is induction of newaircraft) of 5 to 6 per cent and higherprices or fares will remain in placebecause of the pricing discipline fromfinancially weak and challenged carri-ers. A few of the market watchers saidthe way the capacity reduction has hap-pened, the higher pricing will remain inplace for the remaining part of the cur-rent fiscal. However, what will happenif there is a continuous fall in passengergrowth. For instance, in the quarter end-ing June 2012, Indian domestic passen-ger growth actually fell 0.7 per centeven as capacity rose by 4.5 per cent.

`40,621crMoney owed by

aviation companiesto banks


overall aim of achieving continual

improvement in aviation safety.

AIRPORT PROJECTS ON A HIGH

Minister of Civil Aviation Ajit Singh

informed the Rajya Sabha that the

growth in the investment in the airport

infrastructure in the country had been

higher than the growth of economy

because air passenger traffic had been

consistently moving at a higher growth

rate than the GDP. Passenger traffic from

2001-2002 to 2011-12 (last 10 years) has

grown at a rate of 15 per cent as against

the GDP growth rate of 7 per cent to 9

per cent. To cope

up with the

higher growth of

air traffic, the

investment in air-

ports was made

keeping with the

growth in the

traffic. At the

end of XIth Plan

(2007-2012),

total passenger-handling capacity at all

Indian airports was 197.77 million as

against the demand of 162.30 million

passengers that is capacity is ahead of

demand.

MANGALORE RECORDS `9.5-CR PROFIT

According to media reports, an operat-

ing profit of `9.5 crore has been regis-

tered by Mangalore airport for 2011-12.

The Mangalore Airport Director, M R

Vasudeva on the occasion of the air-

port’s diamond jubilee celebration

unveiled that the airport had also

incurred an expenditure of around `32.5

crore during the year.

The airport had come a long way

since 2002-03, when it suffered a loss of

`2.5 crore, during 2002-03, the income

of the airport was `4 crore and expendi-

ture was `6.5 crore, said Vasudeva. It also

informed that civil and electrical works

pertaining to air cargo complex at

Mangalore airport had been finished at a

price of `45 lakh.

On the other projects at the airport,


ON THE GO: AnIndiGo aircraft atBengaluru airportAxel Hilgers Tim Clark

Civil Aviation MinisterAjit Singh


In 2000, an Alliance Air flight fromKolkata to Patna crashed in aresidential area near the Patna Airport

claiming the lives of all 58 passengers onthe board. The subsequent enquiry reportsuggested steps to improve safetymeasures including expansion of therunway and removal of differentobstructions along the area or relocation ofthe airport. Except for passing the buck,the Government of Bihar and the Ministryof Civil Aviation have done nothing andfailed to ward off the threat of possibleeventualities in the past 12 years.

The war of words between Bihar ChiefMinister Nitish Kumar and the AirportsAuthority of India (AAI) reached alarmingproportions and as a result, air connectivitybetween the Patna and the rest of thecountry remains at stake. Both sides tookrecalcitrant stands to protect theirrespective contentions. While the AAI wassteadfast in its denial to continueoperations at the Patna airport unless safetymeasures were ensured, the Chief Ministerrefused to succumb to the pressuremounted by the AAI to prune thousands oftrees along the airport area. Consequently,the AAI slapped an ultimatum on the StateGovernment to close down the airport ifthe matter was not resolved by June 15 andin reply, the Chief Minister reminded theAAI about its responsibility to ensureoperation of airport in the State and refusedto allow the pruning of trees in the capital’sgreen belt.

A total of 2,917-odd trees at the nearbyPatna zoo was identified by the AAI as amajor threat to the safety of air passengersand has to be cut down. The dense forestalong the airport reduces visibility duringlandings and take-offs. Since the runwaycannot be changed, the landing distanceavailable (LDA) has been reduced from1820 meters to 1089 meters.

Patna airport has one of the shortestrunways in the country and can be used foronly ATR-sized aircraft. Flights of B 737sand A 320s would have to be stopped if thetangle is not resolved soon. If the AAI’sdemand to cut the trees down is notfollowed, only two flights a day areexpected to be operated from Patna airportagainst the present operation of 16 flights aday.

The state government has been

dragging the issue on one ground or other.If the CM initially refused to allow fellingof trees, he put the ball in the Centre’scourt by claiming that the trees were fromthe reserved forest and felling them wouldrequire clearance from the Union Forestand Environment Ministry. Authorities inthe state government also claimed that theAAI had identified that stretch of forest forpruning of trees which had been earmarkedfor the relocation of wild animals.

Contesting the State Government’sarguments, the AAI authorities claimedthat a clearance was required for fellingof the trees in a protected forest area andnot for pruning them. Senior officials inthe Aviation Ministry believe that the CMwas not interested to settle the issue andwas only trying to compel the uniongovernment to relocate the airport toNalanda where he has political interests.Arvind Dubey, Director, Patna Airport,claimed that the AAI was ready toexpand the airport but it was notpossible unless the state governmentlent its support to prune trees andacquire land. The proposal forcontinuing the operation of largeraircraft from Patna airport, however,awaited the final call from theDirectorate General of Civil Aviation(DGCA) and the body finally chose tostand by the safety of passengers whenit set August 16 as the deadline to stopoperation of big aircraft.

Nitish Kumar then shot off a letter toCivil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh askinghim to stop curtailment of operations fromthe airport. Kumar wrote: “I have alreadydirected the concerned authorities to takenecessary action as per law for removal ofobstructions including pruning of trees inthe vicinity of Patna airport,” and addedthat most of the obstructions on stategovernment land had been removed. Aboutthe pruning of trees at the zoo, he said theAAI had decided to reconsider thedemand. In addition, the state’s BJPPresident Dr C P Thakur and JD(U) MP NK Singh also met the Prime Minister andbriefed him about the steps being taken toremove the obstacles threatening flights atPatna airport. The PM assured them that hewould hold a meeting with Civil AviationMinister Ajit Singh on the issue.

—D P Sharan

CURTAINS FORPATNA AIRPORT?


Vasudeva stated that about 20 per cent

of the work on the construction of an air

traffic control block had been complet-

ed at the airport and the civil works on

this project could be completed by

January.

CHENNAI RAPID EXIT TAXIWAY ON FAST TRACK

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) at

Chennai airport has started ramping up

a rapid exit way from the airstrip for

flights. The taxi track work is anticipated

to be completed by October at a cost of

`16 crore.

“As part of airport expansion, we had

planned building of angular taxi track.

But for some reasons, we could not take

it up then. Two months back, we started

building it. It will be ready in another

two months,” said Chennai Airport

Director H S Suresh.

BIA USHERS BIGGEST AIRCRAFT

Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) will

now be able to receive the largest air-

craft like the Boeing 747-8i and A380.

BIA was certified by the Director

General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) as

being Code F compliant. “The BIA has

done the safety risk assessment for

Code F aircraft and has received

approval to permit regular operations of

this type of aircraft at this airport from

the DGCA. Additionally, Code F-compli-

ant stand is being created as part of T1

expansion and it will have the capability

to accommodate A380 type of aircraft,”

said a BIAL spokesperson.

MAKING PROGRESS: An inside view of theMangalore Airport

RAMPING UP: A scene outside Chennai airport

NEWS DIGEST


One of the most important factorsthat could inhibit the growth of theaviation sector in the countrywould be the shortage of skilledmanagerial manpower. In a first ofits kind EU-India InstitutionalCapacity Building for the CivilAviation Sector initiative,managers from the sector can takean Aviation Diploma awarded bythe Faculty of Business and Law atthe University of Applied Sciencesin Frankfurt am Main (UAS

Frankfurt). CRUISING HEIGHTS talked to Professor Yvonne Ziegler,Dean of the Business and Law faculty, about the newly-introducedMBA (Aviation Management) in India and how it will preparestudents for the challenges arising from the rapidly growingaviation sector in India. Excerpts from the interview:

What made you take up India to start the aviationmanagement course?The initial contact for coming to India was when we wereplanning our MBA Aviation Management programme inGermany. We wanted to design it in a very international way.Our students should receive an international exposure. Weselected India because it has a very interesting aviation marketwith a booming aviationindustry. We decidedthen to have one of themodules of our GermanMBA AviationManagement in India atthe campus of theUniversity of Petroleumand Energy Services(UPES) in Dehradun.

What is the responseto the course?At the moment, we havegot initial enquiries fromboth students and industrypartners. As you know, wehave now just started with the marketing and the promotion of theprogramme.

How do you see the market shaping up in the next few years?The big advantage of our programme is that it is a part-timeprogramme. So, students don’t have to quit their jobs for a full-timeprogramme and do not have to struggle to enter the market whenthe market is down. So, they will keep their safe place in jobs.During our programme in Germany our students doing MBAprogrammes are getting high visibility in their own companies andas a consequence one-third of our students have been promoted inthe first semester already.

The German faculty would be coming to India for two or

three weeks.The programmes would be organised in such a way that we havetwo 10-14 days teaching blocks per semester and in between thepeople can continue with their regular work. Our professors willcome from Germany but we will also have Indian professors fromUPES as part of the programme.

Have you already signed them up?Yes, it will be the same faculty that we are using for the Germanprogramme. With UPES we have signed a partnership agreement inwhich they will provide us with their teaching faculty and supportthe set-up of the MBA Aviation Management programme.

Do you feel after the graduation, the students will be able tomove on to other challenging positions?To start with, there have been promotions. The students havemoved up to their managerial positions and I think we haveprepared them quite well for this move.

Are these courses recognised by IATA or other internationalbodies?Our university degree is quite recognised within Europe and onecan also enter a PhD programme.

So how much India-centric will the course be?The modules have been finalised but regarding the content we

have some flexibility.For example, what wedo in Germany is thatwe select a set ofstrategic challenges thatare important to theaviation industry. Thesechallenges might varyfrom country tocountry. Through thediscussions with Indiancorporates we havelearnt that they are veryinterested in customerservices, revenuemanagement and alsosecurity. So we can also

modify the content and make the aviation modules more India-centric.

Do you want to mention anything special about the course?There are several very special aspects about our studyprogramme. First, it is the industry focus. Second, it is that weare also focusing on the personality development of thestudents. We have got 360-degree feedback at the beginningand at the end of the programme. 360-degree feedback is usedas a development tool and includes direct feedback from anemployee’s subordinates, peers, and supervisor(s), as well as aself-evaluation. So the students get a feedback on how they areperceived by their subordinates, peers, and supervisor(s) andcan work on weak aspects of their leadership behaviour.

WE SELECTED INDIA BECAUSE IT HAS AVERY INTERESTING AVIATION MARKET

WISDOM LESSONS: Students attending a lecture in a classroom at Frankfurt University.

Professor Yvonne Ziegler

26

COVER STORY

CRUISING HEIGHTS July 2012

GO,INDIGO,GO!

“In this business,every little thingmatters. We are justfocused on beingable to take thoselittle pieces andbeing able to deliverthem better thananyone else”

RAHUL BHATIAIndiGo Co-owner

Two things happened last monththat put IndiGo, the Gurgaon-headquartered low cost carrier(LCC) squarely in the news —something they detest and hate

with as pure a passion as they love the busi-ness of flying.

To start with the reticent promoter ofthe airline, Rahul Bhatia, hit the news witha few outspoken barbs at a business cham-ber meeting in Kolkata that raised the ire ofthe Ministry of Civil Aviation and beforethat could die down, the July numbers wereout and what had been viewed as aninevitability for a long time was now a real-ity. It was exactly six years to the day thatIndiGo had started flying. During this shortspan, not only has the airline captured theimagination of every flyer in India but alsomoved up swiftly to capture the top spot inIndian domestic aviation in terms of marketshare. This commendable performance isreflected in its high profitability and earningit the distinction of being the only Indiandomestic carrier to continuously make prof-its in the last three years. IndiGo is doing

the same thing – flying people – but differ-ently compared to its competitors whetherfull-service or low-cost carriers. And alsomaking money in the process!

But what is it that is different is whatthe mystery really is about. A few monthsago IndiGo President Aditya Ghosh told theBusiness Standard: “There is nothingunusual about it. There must be many low-

fare carriers in Europe, but not all of thoseare as profitable as RyanAir. We focus oncosts and running safe and efficient opera-tions. And, this has a direct impact on run-ning our operations efficiently. There areseveral such small things, which bring thedifference. I would not like to explain it fur-ther, as that is our trade secret.” Let IndiGokeep its secret but its management may wellhave to answer some questions, whichindustry watchers have been asking in pri-vate as well as publicly. But that’s cuttingthe story short.

His boss and the co-owner of IndiGo,Rahul Bhatia had summed it up even moresuccinctly in an earlier interview to CNBC-TV 18: “I may not be in a position to shareopenly the sort of secret sauce. In this busi-ness, every little thing matters. It is notabout doing one or two big things that isgoing to differentiate between success andfailure. It is about all the little things thatyou would do and in the airline business it isbuilt over zillions of little things that com-panies do day-in and day-out. We are justfocused on being able to take those little

SIX YEARS’ TIME IS NOT TOO LONG IN THE LIFE OF AN AIRLINE BUT FORINDIGO, IT HAS BEEN ONE OF STEADY BUILD-UP TO SUCCESS. WHEREOTHERS HAVE FAILED MISERABLY, INDIGO HAS SCORED AND IS TODAY TOPOF THE MIND RECALL FOR MOST INDIAN FLYERS. CRUISING HEIGHTS PIECESTOGETHER THE MYSTERY THAT IS INDIGO AND ITS FLIGHT TO THE TOP…

A year before itstarted operationsin June 2005,IndiGo surprisedeveryone byannouncing thebiggest aircraftpurchase order atthe Paris Air Show

34

COVER STORY

pieces and being able to deliver them betterthan anyone else.”

IndiGo commenced operations inAugust 2006 and established itself as oneof India’s leading airline using the low-costmodel. In January 2011, it got the rights tofly international and in pursuit of this, Indi-Go began operations to Dubai from Delhiin September 2011 and is now on the roadto expand its international presence whichAditya Ghosh says will be confined toMiddle East and South East Asia in theimmediate term. A year before it startedoperations, to be precise in June 2005, onthe occasion of the Paris Air Show, IndiGosurprised everyone by announcing thebiggest aircraft purchase order. Airline pro-moters Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal(Incidentally, the troika — Gangwal, Bha-tia and Ghosh — speak and connect regu-larly on phone to sort out all issues.)and theparent firm InterGlobe Enterprisesannounced purchase of 100 Airbus A320aircraft, which was to be delivered over thenext ten years that is 2015.

While the first aircraft joined its ever-young fleet on July 28, 2006, a year afterplacing the big order, the airline had byJuly-end this year taken delivery of 58A320s and in the next four years ending2015, all of its 100 aircraft on order wouldbe delivered. Indeed, commendable is thefact that when the global financial crisis hitthe scene in 2008-09, perhaps IndiGo wasthe only airline which did not cancel any ofits pending orders or even stagger deliver-ies by years. Well into receiving aircraftfrom its first order, in January 2011, IndiGoagain shook the aviation world by placingorders for 180 Airbus A320 aircraft ofwhich 150 will be A320 neo (new engineoption) and the remaining the same A320including, perhaps two A321s. Sincelaunch in August 2006, IndiGo had till Feb-ruary 2012 flew nearly 40 million passen-gers in about 278,000 flights. In February2012, IndiGo occupied the second top slotamong Indian carriers in terms of marketshare determined by percentage share oftotal domestic passengers flown by alldomestic carriers. By March 2012, theLCC was flying 307 flights daily to 31 des-tinations. And by July, it was number one!

Reiterating its pre-eminent position,CAPA (Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation)said of IndiGo that it was the only airline,rather an anomaly in the Indian aviationmarket, to make profits in the fiscal 2011-12 ending March 31, 2012. But it is also

feeling the pressure of a very difficult oper-ating environment. Minister of Civil Avia-tion Ajit Singh told the Lok Sabha inMarch 2012 that all scheduled Indian carri-ers except for IndiGo were incurring lossesbased on returns filed with the DGCA.Between 2007 and 2010, the Indian airlineindustry reported `26,000 crore losses,which is expected to be in the region of`10,000 crore in 2011-12. With IndiGobucking this loss-making trend, it is notsurprising that there is a great desire tounravel this mystery.

As Singh said, the spiralling cost offuel, global economic slowdown, lowyields due to intense competition and theconsequent widening of the gap betweenrevenue and expenses contributed to thelosses. The difficult operating environmentreferred above is indeed evident from arecent comment made by Aditya Ghoshwhen he said that IndiGo would witness aslump in profits in the current financialyear (2011-12) on the back of higher fuelprices, low margins. In fiscal 2010-11, Indi-Go saw 18 per cent growth in profits to`650 crore based on a profit margin of 18.6to 20 per cent on a revenue of `3500 crore.In the previous fiscal 2009-10 the profit

HITTINGTHE RIGHTNOTES

STRONG AND SILENT: Some aircraft fromIndiGo’s fleet at Delhi airport

Aug 4, 2006: IndiGo

announces launch of

operations of its inaugural

flight from Delhi to Guwahati.

Dec 8, 2006: Expands

route network from Delhi.

Introduces flights to Goa,

Jaipur and Kolkata.

June 20, 2007:

Creates history

by acquiring 10th

aircraft in a peri-

od of 10 months

since its birth.

April 16,

2009:

Launches

flight status

service on

mobile.

June 18,

2009:

Achieves best

on-time

performance

among nation-

al airlines.

September 3,

2010: Takes

delivery of 25th

A320 aircraft.

December 18, 2010:

Notches second spot

in market share.

Jan 13, 2011: Creates history

by placing orders for 180

single-aisle Airbus A320

passenger jetliners.

June 15, 2011: Goes international by

starting services from Delhi to Dubai.

February 10, 2012: Takes delivery

of its 50th Airbus A320 aircraft.

June 28, 2012: Becomes first

airline in India to implement

Required Navigation Performance.

July 9, 2012: Inks

agreement with Pratt

& Whitney for 150

A320neo engines.


margin was higher at 25 per cent to deliverprofits of `550 crore. Profit margin is ameasure of profitability arrived at by calcu-lating the net profit as a percentage of rev-enue.

This is also explained by the increasein fleet size and, therefore, more passengerscarried and the drop in profit margin (notnet profits per se) due to squeeze in mar-gins or yields. The only way to compareIndiGo’s performance is to place it in frontof another LCC, SpiceJet. In March 2011,SpiceJet had 13 per cent market share interms of passengers carried and wasabout to post a profit of `175 crore.

(The actuals were different.) These profitsof SpiceJet were supposed to be opera-tional and without inclusion of sale andlease-back income. In contrast, IndiGo hada market share of 20 per cent and accord-ingly its profits should have been `370 to`400 crore. Aviation and financial analystsdo agree on such a possibility but it still didnot in any way minimise the great perform-ance of IndiGo.

Nonetheless, there are a few issues onwhich IndiGo management held different

views from its competition for thevery reason of competition.

When Kingfisher Airlinesshowed clear signs of goingunder and its promoter VijayMallya was lobbying hard toget Foreign Direct Invest-ment (FDI) by foreign carriers

in Indian domestic carriers,one of the first to raise the

banner of revolt andopposition was Indi-

Go prime moverRahul Bhatia.In an inter-view to aneconomic dai-

ly in Novem-ber 2011,

Rahul Bhatia said Air India would end up aloser if foreign airlines were allowed to buyinto domestic carriers. He remarked that inthe coming year, air traffic in India wouldjump sharply and the opportunity it wouldcreate should belong to Indian carriers.

Bhatia further said that his oppositionto FDI by foreign carriers besides the AirIndia angle was that any investing foreignairline after putting money in a local carrierwould create a network between that Indianairline and itself. This would severely dam-age Air India and people must be cognizantof it. The foreign carrier will align thatlocal carrier to itself which will enable it tocome up with a global network that wouldfly in the face of what may be in the inter-est of Air India. This way, he said, foreigncarriers would not only extract value oftheir bilaterals from their end but also fromthe Indian side. It would cut both ways.Rahul Bhatia referred to the US cappingforeign investment by foreign carriers at 25per cent besides the often- used or misusedargument of “security”. He said the localfranchise needed to blossom, according tothe daily that interviewed him.

Bhatia, in a virtual cautioning of thegovernment, said that just because adomestic carrier had serious problems, theofficial policy should not be tweaked to suitthe ailing carrier. It was not for the firsttime that the issue of FDI by foreign carri-ers had been raised. It was a hot topic 14years ago when the Tatas wanted to teamup with SIA. Later, the same policy-makerswho Bhatia wants us to believe should notbe influenced, were indeed influenced forbarring the Tatas from getting into the air-line business even after they gave a com-mitment that there would be no foreign air-line FDI. Significantly, IndiGo manage-ment needs to know that in 1998 there wasno policy bar on FDI by foreign carriers asone of the big boys of today had it in his

MARKET SHARE OF SCHEDULEDDOMESTIC AIRLINES

IndiGo27.0%

Go Air7.0%

Spicejet17.8%

Air India(DOM)

18.20%

JetLite 7.20%

Kingfisher3.4%

100

80

60

40

20

0Air

IndiaJet

AirwaysJetLite Kingfisher SpiceJet GoAir IndiGo

71.3

64.7

74.2

67.1

79.8

Seat

Facto

r(%)

71.7

62.2

5.3 80.4

66.3

76.6

63.2

86.5

75.5

PASSENGER LOAD FACTOR OF SCHEDULED DOMESTIC AIRLINES

The passenger load factor in the month of July 2012 has declined mainly due to lean season.

JUNE 2012 JULY 2012

Jet Airways19.4%

Jet Airways +Jetlite = 26.60%


“We focus on costs andrunning safe and efficientoperations…”

ADITYA GHOSHIndiGo President

36

COVER STORY

airline but supposedly withdrew his foreignpartners to help change the policy to bar theTatas.

The second time the FDI issue was dis-cussed was when the Civil Aviation Min-istry under Praful Patel floated a visiondocument that had indicated FDI by foreigncarriers. Mallya was active even then butthe same big boy (IndiGo was a very smallboy then) used all his lobbying power withconstituents of UPA-I to shoot down theproposal. Today, the big boy says he is neu-tral to FDI by a foreign carrier. Bhatiatrashed Mallya who was busy in November2011 addressing newspersons in Mumbaijust when the large-scale flight cancella-tions brought Kingfisher on the front pagesof every newspaper and occupied primetime of electronic channels. Mallya hadstated that it was untrue that an LCC wasmaking profits on operations. “...it has beendownhill for civil aviation except for oneairline that defies the odds and claims to beprofitable, howeverunlikely that may be,”he wrote in a memo toemployees. Its profitsmainly originated fromsale and lease back.Mallya further notedthat there was nothinglike low cost as mostcosts were common toall airlines whether fullservice or no frills. Inthis context, he said thatwhen fuel cost wassame, aircraft same,maintenance cost same,there was no room forlow cost. Another rivaltold the media that netprofit margins in the airline business hov-ered around the four per cent mark even forthe best. But there was always revenuefrom one-off inflows like sale and leaseback that bloated your books into profit.

Bhatia’s response as reported in themedia was blunt: he did not own the intel-lectual property right on sale and lease backand every airline operator had the freedomto do so. Moreover, his balance sheet wasavailable with the DGCA and anyone couldsee it. As for costs, Bhatia said that therewas ample scope for cost arbitrage, which alow cost carrier could bring and which wasthe prime reason to attract passengers inIndia, who were very cost conscious and,therefore, fare conscious. IndiGo’s motto isto deliver at reasonable cost a good qualityproduct. Its refrain was: do not take upcosts that cannot be taken off. There waseven a reference to serving of virtual cham-pagne and caviar by Mallya. Today, Mallyadoes not even have the aircraft, leave alone

serving the sizzling sea food to his passen-gers in business class. There are hardly any“guests” as Mallya used to endearinglyaddress his passengers to sip his cham-pagne!

According to the airline PresidentAditya Ghosh, the emergence of IndiGo asa top airline was mainly due to strict adher-ence to its strong business plan based onlow cost. But with the rapid rise in its fleet,it is facing a few challenges on the staffingfront and maintenance of service standards.Added to this, he said that profitability wasgoing to remain under pressure due to theweak rupee, high taxes, rising airport feesand high fuel costs. As is widely feared ifthese beyond-control costs rise further,there could be a negative impact on the ris-ing Indian domestic air traffic. Ghosh, in away, acknowledging this, said that if thefares were low and fuel prices were high, itwould create pressure on margins or yields.Obviously this happened in fiscal 2011-12 -

— he had already cau-tioned that IndiGo’s prof-its in fiscal ending March31, 2012, would be onlya fraction of what it wasin the previous year.Aditya Ghosh who is aclever talker like a goodlawyer, told newsmen onfew occasions, “As longas we can keep our headsabove the water, whichbasically means we havemoney for spares, hiringpeople, recruitment, etcthat is what profitabilitymeans for us…Low costis not low quality. On-time performance, clean

aircraft and good on-board service at rea-sonable fares is all that matters to passen-gers.”

Perhaps, no other airline was and is ona hiring spree like IndiGo, which has over500 pilots for its 58 fleet aircraft and anoth-er 200 pilots on roll. So, in the event of anyexpansion by way of induction of new air-craft would not be a problem: IndiGo haspilots to fly them. Obviously, many newcommanders and co-pilots have desertedMallya and his Kingfisher Airlines tosecure their future with IndiGo. On theissue of FDI by foreign carriers, when areporter asked Ghosh this question in Janu-ary 2012 he said that they were not lookingfor investors – either foreign or domestic.

He, however, asked if FDI by itselfcould be a solution to the many problemsfaced by the Indian aviation industry. WhileGhosh admitted that FDI could bring mon-ey, the issue was how it would be utilised.Later in March 2012, in an interview to a


Rahul Bhatia said he had nothing totell us, but sources at IndiGo saidthat he was ‘pissed off’ that the

Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) inKolkata had invited the media to what wassupposed to be a “closed door, free andfrank off-the-record discussion”. Bhatiarealised that the media was in the roomlong after he had made his view known. Itliterally set the cat amongst the pigeonsand a fuming Civil Aviation Ministryissued a point by point rebuttal.Bhatiaspeak

• In US, a FA (federal aviation adminis-trator) is equivalent to the DGCA. If theywere confronted with a situation where thecrew is not paid for months — be it pilot ortechnical staff — I guarantee they will shutthe airline on safety grounds.

• What we didn’t know and regret is thegovernment’s relentless effort to keep inef-ficient private operators in business. Gov-ernment must take decisions that are for thegood of the industry and not for the goodof a select few.

• We always knew we will have an artifi-cial competitor in Air India. Air India in itscurrent state and form will always haveissues. What we did not know was the gov-ernment’s relentless effort to keep it afloat.

• We (IndiGo) are probably the only zerodebt company pitched against competitorswho keep getting sop after sops. This gamewould not go on for long. Companies withlow-cost structure will survive.

• On paper we are allowed to fly to othercountries. But when we make an applica-tion, the government gives the right to aselective few. We would love to fly but thegovernment holds on to those rights. Thisis severe discrimination and it is frustrat-ing.

• Our principle issue has been why thegovernment is tinkering with policy for aselect few in the industry. When do you stopgiving relief to people who are inefficient?The Sarkari take

• IndiGo has been allocated traffic rightsbased on their requests for internationalroutes.

• Government being (the) owner of AIis well within its rights to promote thenational carrier and prepare it for competi-tion.

• On the issue of safety of airlines, itis stated that the DGCA has been regular-ly monitoring the safety related issues ofall airlines…Further, there are no regula-tory frameworks anywhere in the worldallowing cancellation of the license ofairlines merely for failing to pay salariesto the staff.

When VijayMallya waslobbying to getFDI, one of thefirst to raise thebanner of revoltwas IndiGoprime moverRahul Bhatia

HEAD-ON

TV channel, Aditya Ghosh speaking aboutFDI, said that any avenue which brought innew technology, business and moneywould always be welcome. This wouldincrease competition and keep carriers ontheir toes. However, Ghosh’s disconnectwas whether that would become the HolyGrail to success or profitability. Claimingthat he had no particular view on FDI, hesaid that he would be more concernedabout how an airline was run and how theindustry or policies encouraged two things:growth and other rewards and efficiency.Ghosh said that airlines like his own whichwere growing efficiently, needed to berewarded by concession on fuel prices. Itmay be mentioned here that Ghosh toldnewsmen that, at present, margins wereindeed under pressure because the averageprice of fuel was higher than what it was in2009-10.

Though there has been a growth in rev-enue and the airline will turn out to be prof-itable at the end of March 2012, the profitswill be only a fraction of what it was in theprevious year: `650 crore. If his boss want-ed the government not to tweak policy tofavour the ailing and failing Kingfisher ofMallya, Ghosh wanted the policy tweakeddifferently to suit and reward efficient oper-ators like IndiGo. In this context, he saidthat if the government could reward byoffering discounts in fuel and airportcharges that would serve as an incentive toall operators, to perform better and fix theirhouse. Aditya Ghosh cautioned that onecould not have a situation where capacityshrank when domestic traffic was rising by15 per cent. Obviously, if the fares rosethere would be an impact on the number ofpeople flying and the whole growth storywould start crashing down. Addressing theFICCI-IBA summit in Delhi in August2011, Ghosh was quoted as saying: “I don’tbelieve in fare hikes. I just believe in lotsmore people flying and being a profitableairline.” So far so good, but if marginscome under even greater pressure, can Indi-Go be immune to fare hikes? Obviously, nobusiness model can be inflation proof.

In piecing together this story we drewupon the views and news given out byCAPA. But the consulting organisation andits CEO, Kapil Kaul, somehow failed tounravel the whole mystery, which Ghoshdescribed as their trade secret. It is quitenormal for airlines these days not just theLCC types but even full-service carriers tooutsource important functions of airlineoperation. This not only keeps the employ-ee-to-aircraft ratio low but also keeps itsbalance sheet clean. The employee-to-air-craft ratio at the beginning of January 2012was 150 for Jet Airways, 111 for Kingfish-er Airlines, 118 for SpiceJet, 185 for GoAir

and 102 for IndiGo. Aditya Ghosh said thathis airline was making profits because ofstrict cost controls and not deviating fromits model which included paid-for meals,higher aircraft utilisation and tightly-framed maintenance contracts. Besides SriLankan airline maintaining some of itsfleet, IndiGo has also agreed to get a 320aircraft serviced by Lufthansa Technik,Philippines. IndiGo has hired them to con-duct lease return checks on seven of itsA320s. The profitability was evident from2010-11 figures of IndiGo when it earnedrevenues of `3946 crore and incurredexpenses of `3229 crore. During that fiscal,it even hired 1097 people including pilots,cabin crew, etc.

The critics have been making intelli-gent guesses on its sale and lease back routeas also lease rentals. Sources indicate thatIndiGo’s lease rental costs are too low andit is a wonder how other airlines are notable to get such a deal. There is a view,which IndiGo management will never con-firm, and that is part of the lease rentalsmay or could be indirectly subsidised bythe engine suppliers. When IndiGo initiallyordered 100 A320s, it chose IAE engines V2500 to power them. Mallya also orderedthe same engines for his aircraft. When theproblem arose, Mallya grounded his fleetbut IndiGo got IAE to fix the silver screwproblem immediately. The reason IndiGowasn’t decimated by the maintenance andgrounding is because of a superb ‘power bythe hour’ contract with IAE — the entireresponsibility on performance delivery ison the manufacturer. The airline has identi-cal Airbus for the airframe plus for othercritical components. IndiGo simply had thevision to make sure they factored in anyunforeseen issues. Kingfisher too, had anengine maintenance agreement, but withoutfull guarantees that costs more.

We are not making any insinuation ofany kind or allegation of any kind. It is onlyan intelligent guess. It is not unusual for air-lines to give bulk orders to engine manu-facturers and get them to write a cheque tosubsidise their aircraft lease rentals. As formaintenance costs, it has been argued byIndian carriers that their maintenance costis low because their aircraft are brand newand do not require the expensive C and Dcheck over time. But every lease agreementdoes carry a maintenance clause towardswhich the airline operator using the leasedaircraft deposits money to keep mainte-nance adequately funded.

For instance, a C check is due in sevenyears or depends upon how the aircraft inquestion has been utilised. High AircraftUtilisation like that by Air Arabia of 14 to15 hours a day would mean earlier C checkthan otherwise. The C check maintenance

Last year by IndiGo’s fifth anniver-sary on August 3, it had a fleet of42 Airbus 320 aircraft and a mar-

ket share of 19.2 per cent. On its sixthbirthday this year, its fleet has grown to58 aircraft, having added 16 aircraft inthe last 12 months. Eight aircraft havebeen added to IndiGo’s fleet since Janu-ary and two more will come by the year-end. No wonder it will make the maxi-mum of the decimation of Kingfisher —mopping up its numbers far better thananyone else including Jet whose domes-tic capacity has hardly grown.

But it doesn’t seem to impress thecompetition. Jet Airways CEO NikosKardassis told the media that what mat-tered were benchmarks like total rev-enues and on-time performance. Thesewere the real differentiators, he said.“We are the market leaders where itcounts. Revenue. We generate more rev-enue in the domestic market than any ofour competitors. We are also the marketleader by total revenue (over $3.6 bil-lion). What matters is financial strengthand excellence in operations and on timeperformance. And we are the leaders inall,” Kardassis told the media.

Jet Airways has moderated itsdomestic capacity growth since last fewyears with capacity growth largely due tochanges in aircraft configuration, whichincreased more seats with launch of JetKonnect while IndiGo has increasedweekly capacity by over 30 per cent inJune 2012 compared to June 2011. Of the58, only 50 of IndiGo’s aircraft servicedomestic routes, while for Jet Airwaysthat number is much higher: 58 B-737sand 20 ATRs on domestic routes. In spiteof this, IndiGo is able to offer highercapacity – of 180 seats per plane – butJet Airways does not as its ATRs are 70-80 seaters and not all B-737s have sin-gle-class configuration, which reducesthe number of seats offered per plane.

SEATS,PLANES ANDMARKETSHARE


38

COVER STORY

cost is actually funded based on the averagenumber of hours of engine rotation or flownor rather that accrues every hour. This isbasically meant to avoid lumping upexpenses at the end and hence the need forfunding maintenance reserves. No aircraftlessor leases an aircraft, even if it be a partof sale and lease back route, without amaintenance fund being part of the leaserentals. Obviously, the airline must havedone a great deal when it placed a hugeorder in June 2005. In one interview, Ghoshsaid: “To date, we have ordered in theregion of 280 aircraft – so the next 14 to 15years are set and we have enough on ourplates. This includes the order for 150 Air-bus A320neos and 30 A320s at the Paris AirShow (2011). Having said that, it’s a factthat India is a highly underserved marketand, therefore, if there is a need for morecapacity, then we will evaluate our needs.The average age of our fleet is 2.1 years atthe moment and will never exceed 2.5years.”

One is not sure if it got the same dealwhen it placed orders for 180 A320 aircraftin 2011 but chose Pratt and Whitneyengines or the newengines for its proposed180 aircraft deal. That isas much on the mainte-nance part of the IndiGostory. There are alsosome issues on whichthere is no clarity. Forinstance, as part of itsoutsourced services likeothers, IndiGo gets itsground handling done byan agency, which is notpart of the airline and,therefore, neither the peo-ple employed nor theequipment used is part ofthe airline’s accountbooks. If the airline paysvery little lease rentals forthe ground handling equipment used to loadand unload its plane as well as tow them,etc, the account books remain clean andunburdened by these charges.

Perhaps, it will be interesting to take apage out of what Accenture had recom-mended when the Air India-Indian mergertook place. Among other things, Accenturerecommended that Air India must have sixSeparate Business Units (SBUs). In pur-suance of this, since the legal mergerbecame a reality in August 2007, Air Indiamanagement decided to hive off its mainte-nance and ground handling units. Thiswould take away between 7000 and 10000people out of Air India’s pure flying opera-tional expenses. Obviously, the revenue itwill earn from flying will be divided over

much less heads as well as overheads. Thebottomline will improve and Air Indiacould possibly rise again. The point madeabout Air India is only to suggest or showhow the cost could be kept away from air-craft operations to yield a different imagewhich in the process also shows highermargins or yields than hitherto.

In real terms, however, IndiGo’s great-est success is its ability to attract and source

talent and keep themhappy. As Rahul Bhatiaopened out in a rareinterview with Money-control.com: “We trulybelieve that one of thekey differentiators thatget us to deliver whatwe are to customers,which obviously trans-lates into income, isreally our people. Ithink the company isvery focused on findingthe right set of people.This is the mantra thatwe have followed like areligion over the years.It is our view that find-ing people with the

basic competence to do what they do on aday-to-day basis, I think is a relatively easytask. But to find people who not only havethe competence, but also this commitmentto excel, have the passion to actually sur-pass expectations, that sort of cocktail real-ly is the recipe for success.”

Two classic examples should suffice:For the complex acquisition and leasingoperations, they found CFO Riyaz Peer-mohammed, who was coaxed to movefrom Emirates where he was a superstar.Apparently Gangwal wasn’t too happywith the choice, but Rahul persuadedhim. If insiders are to be believed, Gang-wal is happy he listened to Rahul. IndiGohas a six-year sale and lease back agree-ments for most of its planes. Translation:

The plane goes back to the leaser afterthat period and IndiGo inducts anotherbrand new aircraft. It keeps the fleetyoung, saves on maintenance and pro-vides a peppy set of planes at a marginalcost. Critically, the ‘D’ check is out.That’s the nuts and bolts maintenancecheck when the aircraft is in its barebones literally put through the scanner. Ithappens when you are older than six!

On daily operations, IndiGo’s opera-tions head till last year was Shakti Lumba.Lumba should have been head of opera-tions in Indian Airlines where he workedfor years long back, they overlooked himand IndiGo reaped the benefits. He put thesystems in place. It is now run by CaptSaleem Zaheer. Wi-fi flight dispatch wasfirst introduced by IndiGo; they monitortheir aircraft with digital flight datarecorders. There are a whole lot of such ini-tiatives including taxiing on one engine,etc. to save fuel.

Talk to any of their hostesses on a flightand they’ll tell you it’s hard work. “Wehave to really work hard, but it’s fun and welove the airline,” exclaimed one of themduring a recent flight. There is little attri-tion, or at least not on the level that plaguesother airlines and that’s a huge positive.

“I think the company actually is veryenergetic about finding such individualsbecause as we all know in life, in busi-ness, especially things can go up anddown. We just talked about fuel, fuel cango up and down. It is our view that whenthe going is good a lot of stuff can beshoved under the rack, but when life getsa little bit more difficult we really believethat it’s our people who will make the dif-ference between success and failure. AndI think a lot of that comes to the fore,”Bhatia said in conclusion.

He is perhaps right!

*Rahul Bhatia and Aditya Ghosh were approacheda number of times to comment for this story but wereunavailable. n


The emergenceof IndiGo as atop airline wasmainly due tostrict adherenceto its businessplan, accordingto IndiGoPresident Ghosh

FOUNDERS AND MOVERS: Rahul Bhatia (centre) with co-owner Rakesh Gangwal (right) andIndiGo’s first CEO Bruce Ashby (left), now CEO of oneworld.

HC T

IWAR

I

Indian Sikorsky airframeflies in Brazil

T he S-92 airframe was made by the TataAdvanced Systems Ltd (TASL) inHyderabad, which manufactures the

cabins, and equips them with componentsmade by the Tata-Sikorsky joint venturecompany, TARA. The helicopter is beingdelivered to Lider Aviacao of Brazil,which charters both aircraft and helicop-ters for multi-applications, including serv-icing offshore oil installations.

At present, there are two manufactur-ing facilities in Hyderabad in partnershipbetween Sikorsky and Tata Group compa-

nies that supply the global Sikorsky sup-ply chain. Tata Advanced Systems Ltd(TASL) makes S-92 cabins and then sendsthem to the Sikorsky facility at Coatsvillein Pennsylvania in the US. Tata AerospaceSystems is a joint venture (JV) betweenthe Tata Group and Sikorsky Aircraftsigned in 2009 to manufacture aerospacecomponents for Sikorsky in India, includ-ing components for S-92 helicopter cab-ins.

Located in Hyderabad, the JV has nowcommenced production of over 4,000

detailed components, which can be usedfor both rotary and fixed-wing aircraft.The Sikorsky S-92 is a large, twin-enginehelicopter that can be used for both civiland military purposes.

Buoyed by the strong demand for theS-92, TASL plans to ramp up its annualcapacity from 12 to 26 and then scale it upto 36 per annum. So far, Sikorsky has sold160 S-92 helicopters for a variety of usesranging from defence, offshore oil explo-ration, search and rescue, VIP travel andinternal security.

39

P40 P43Indian Navy’s LUH tenderhas excited global choppermanufacturer

NAVAL TENDER Sikorsky’s Bob Kokroda onthe American giant’s plansfor the Indian market

BULLISH ON INDIA

FOCUS ON ‘COPTERS

Indian Sikorsky airframeflies in BrazilThe fruit of the joint venture between Sikorsky and the TataGroup has taken wing in Brazil


WORLDBEATER:Techniciansworking onthe S-76 air-frame atTASL

FOCUS ON ‘COPTERS

We struckgold when wecame to India“ “

ON THE INDIAN MARKETIt's not just the Indian government. It'sthe commercial operators in India; it'sthe growing infrastructure in India.We feel like we have a lot of value thatwe can bring to the Indian market. Wealso want to make sure that peoplerealise that we are there to stay. Wewant to become part of the fabric ofIndia which is why we have a perma-nent workforce already there. We aredoing joint manufacturing; we aredoing a lot of work and it has nothingto do with just selling helicopters. Ithas everything to do with really estab-lishing ourselves as a long-term pres-ence in India. So that's why the tour-Legacy of Heroes- had the flavour thatit did. In the world we want to repre-sent ourselves as a great, strong com-pany and it is the partner for India that

Bob Kokorda, VicePresident, Sales &Marketing, Sikorsky, isupbeat about his com-pany's prospects inIndia. In this interviewwith K Srinivasan, onthe sidelines of therecent FarnboroughAir Show, Kokordaalong with Air ViceMarshal (Retd) ArvindWalia, Executive Vice-President, India &South Asia, talks aboutthe Sikorsky's facilitiesin India, the Naval heli-copter deal and muchmore. Excerpts:

brings a lot of value. And we aremore about, like I said, bringingvalue than we are about selling ourproducts.

ON THE HYDERABAD FACILITIESI'll tell you - I was just there in March.I have seen Sikorsky set up manufac-turing facilities in many different loca-tions both in and out of the US and Iwas very impressed with the Indianwork. I think we struck gold when wecame to India and set up our ownmanufacturing because we are goingto receive great benefits from theworkforce. Their enthusiasm andmotivation was some of the best I haveever seen and I've seen our set up, as Isaid, in many places around the world.So we are very optimistic. We knowalready…we already have visions forhow to grow. We are watching themcarefully making sure that we don't tryto grow them too fast because we wantthem to succeed.

On the way things have moved (Smiles) Extremely happy.

On the Naval helicopter deal?We are ready to serve the needs of theIndian government, the Indian Navyand we have submitted our proposal;we have granted an extension of thatproposal and we are waiting for theirresponse to us.

On the feedback We have only received the feedbackthat what we've submitted is positive.We haven't received any negative feed-back. We are re-working our positionsbecause it is taking a long time. So, weare constantly internally re-evaluatingin preparation for being called in but,no, we haven't received anything thatwould make us think otherwise.

On not competing in the 75 multi-rolechopper deal?Air Marshal Walia: Where did you getthis information? The Request forInformation (RFI) has been respond-ed to and we have provided the rightsolution that is required by the navy.In fact, we are looking forward to therelease of the RFP (request for propos-al) and when it comes we will bid for it.

On offering the Black Hawk to IndiaYou know I saw this news from afriend of mine actually in anothercompany, who sent it to me from the

internet and he said, "I didn't knowyou were going to bring the BlackHawks to India!" So we were surprisedactually when we saw this news and Icould tell you quite honestly we areready to talk to them any time they likeabout the Black Hawk. And that's allI'll say…

On the European manufacturers compla-ints about the Sea HawkWe don't talk about our competitors.

Air Marshal Walia: we don't respond toour competition.They can make whatever assertionsthey'd like. We believe and we knowthat our product has an excellent trackrecord. The Sea Hawk and all of itsvariants have been flying in nine dif-ferent countries outside of the UnitedStates and have an excellent trackrecord. So, we are very confident ofour products. We don't have anyresponse to that claim because wedon't have any data to support it.

On defending yourselfWe have absolutely been open with theIndian government and provided themwith every bit of information so thatthey can make their own evaluation ofthis product. And every time they haveasked us for more information, we pro-vide them with the feedback. So wehave nothing to hide and we feel confi-dent that we've provided the IndianNavy and the Indian MoD (Ministry ofDefence) with all the information theyneed to make a good decision.

Air Marshal Walia: May I add, we notonly provided, but we also provedbeyond the expectations of theevaluation team that our product cando much more than what we havestated. So, I rest our case there. Wedon't respond to others' viewpoints.Everybody's got their viewpoint -- it'sa democratic world but we know what

our product is and our customers orpatrons, they know what they haveevaluated. We believe in theirintelligence, we believe in theirhonesty, we believe in their integrity.

On the Indian Commercial MarketCorrect, but most of our products arein the medium and large size. So asthe need for those products grows, weare ready to serve the Indian market.Some of the customers have alreadystepped forward and asked for thosesize products, have them and are fly-ing them and they are performingwell. So we are confident that we aregoing to serve every requirement thatcomes out for medium and heavy heli-copters in the commercial market.

On Homeland security I think I'll answer that. We have beenin touch with the departments, para-military forces concerned. We havemade certain presentations, we haveprovided the information and as andwhen their requirements are broughtout in the form of RFP we are ready torespond. We have the right products;we have the right machines that canaddress the requirements of the para-military forces for internal security.

On modifying machines for internalsecurity?They can be equipped in a variety ofways depending on the mission of thatspecific agency. If it is disaster relief,you need extra cargo requirements. Ifit is rescue work, we can do that. If itis for internal security and there areseparate military needs, we have lotsof equipment we can provide, all ofwhich is of course subject to US StateDepartment's approval. And like Isaid when we did the Legacy ofHeroes, it was to make sure that every-body's aware that we have these greatproducts ready. So we brought itaround the country to show everyonethat it's real, it's flying, it's in produc-tion and selling very well right now.Our S92 is actually sold out this yearand next year — a large portion is soldout.

On exciting developments for the future?We are always focused on new tech-nology growth. We are a company thatis a true innovator. So we have a lot ofopportunities coming up with highspeed, with autonomy and what wecall self-actualisation.

FOCUS ON ‘COPTERS

AVM(Retd) Arvind Walia



FOCUS ON ‘COPTERS

Bell Helicopter has announced that it has received its air-worthiness certificate from the Civil AviationAdministration of China (CAAC) for the Bell 429. The cer-tification follows the first complete assembly and successfulflight testing of a 429 at a CAAC 145 service facility.Kingwing General Aviation Company, a CAAC 145 servicefacility, completed the first reassembly and flight testing ofa Bell 429 in China. With the CAAC approval of twoKingwing pilots' Bell Helicopter Training Academy (BTA)429 flight training, Kingwing signed a Memorandum ofAgreement to perform demonstrations of the aircraft atAirshow China in November. The Bell 429 is an advancedlight-twin IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) helicopter, devel-oped servicing the full spectrum of segments like air med-ical, law enforcement, oil and gas, utility, corporate, etc.

God's own country got it own chopper service as Delhi-basedChipsan Aviation began chartered helicopter services fromKochi to Sabarimala. State Excise Minister K Babu inaugurat-ed the heli-taxi service, which started from Kochi InternationalAirport at Nedumbassery. He said: “The government wouldprovide all sorts of support to the venture as it aims not only totransport pilgrims to Sabarimala but also to carry out criticaloperations like rescue services, VIP visits and tourism promo-tion.” Chipsan Aviation is using the Eurocopter AS 350 B3,which seats six people for the service.

Pawan Hans, the country's largest chopper operator, has launchedchopper services in the North-Eastern State of Mizoram. The newchopper service links the district headquarters with other parts ofthe state including nine towns. While inaugurating it, ChiefMinister Lal Thanhawla stressed the importance of helicopterservices in the state due to difficulties with the road network andthe absence of other modes of transport like inland water and rail-way. The Union Home Ministry would pay 75 per cent of the`1,308 lakh for annual wet leasing, with the rest of the 25 per centto be paid by the state government.

It won't be long before Boeing's Apache gunship touches down atan airbase in India, according to a report in The Times of India.The newspaper quoted an unnamed Defence Ministry official assaying: “It’s just a matter of time before the contract is inked forthe Apaches after final commercial negotiations. Most of the hur-dles have been cleared.”

The Boeing AH-64 Apache gunship reportedly beat theRussian Mi-28 Havoc for the contract for the 22 heavy-dutyattack choppers for the Indian Air Force. The Russian chopperfailed to pass the air staff qualitative requirements (ASQRs) whiletheAH-64D Apache Longbow met all the required criteria.

The multi-mission AH-64D Apache Longbow is the next-generation version of original AH-64A Apache. With its fire-con-trol radar, mounted on top of the rotors, the aircraft is known asthe AH-64D Apache Longbow. Without the radar, the combat-proven aircraft is called the AH-64D Apache. Current operators ofthe AH 64 Apache include the US Army, Egypt, Greece, Israel,Japan, Kuwait, The Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Republic ofSingapore, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.

New Chopper servicein Mizoram

Chopper toursfrom Kochi to Sabarimala

Stage set for Boeing’s Apachein India

Chinese nodfor Bell 429

Chinese nodfor Bell 429


IN THE RACE

For the second time this year, the US Marine Corps hasapproved the deployment extension of K-MAX Cargo UAS, thefirst unmanned helicopter to deliver cargo and resupply troopsin a combat zone. By supplying forward-operating bases withK-MAX instead of ground convoy or manned aircraft, theMarine Corps has reduced the threat posed to personnel byimprovised explosive devices by thousands of hours. Earlierthis year, the United States Marine Corps requested the aircraft,a joint effort by Lockheed Martin and Kaman Aerospace stayedin theatre through September 30.

The announcement extends K-MAX service in Afghanistanfor an additional six months and includes an option to extend itstime through September 2013. The use of this aircraft elimi-nates the need for manned-ground convoys, reducing the num-ber of its warfighters exposed to improvised explosive devices.

The K-MAX programme has flown 485 sorties, 525 hoursand lifted more than 1.6 million pounds of cargo since it arrivedin theater in November 2011. In May, the aircraft performed ahistoric “hot hook-up,” enabling personnel to attach cargo tothe unmanned aircraft while in hover mode. That capability isnow used regularly to perform retrograde missions.

There is considerable excitement in the naval helicopter seg-ment after the recent request for proposal (RFP) was issued bythe Indian Navy for 56 light utility helicopters (LUH). In addi-tion to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the contendersfor the $1-billion deal include a naval variant ofAgustaWestland's AW109 Koala, the Sikorsky S-76B, and theEurocopter AS565 Panther. Textron's Bell and Russian makersKamov and Kazan might also participate with their respectiveaircraft. According to the RFP, the Navy wants a four-seat twin-engine helicopter with a range of 200 nautical miles and a max-imum payload of 1,102 pounds.

For anti-submarine warfare, the RFP calls for armamentlike the ability to launch a light torpedo or depth charge and amount for 12.7-mm machine guns or two rocket launchers oneither side. The chopper would also incorporate foldable rotorsand would have a maximum takeoff weight of not more than 4.5metric tonnes with the ability to operate in adverse weather byday and night from small decks of naval vessels in addition tothe bigger decks of aircraft carriers.

Race on to supply Navy with LightUtility Helicopters

Another tour of duty for K-MAXunmanned choppers

As Boeing marks the 50th anniversary of delivering the first H-47 Chinook military helicopter, the company is nearing com-pletion of a $130-million renovation of its production line nearPhiladelphia that will help it meet global demand for the latestmodel, the CH-47F. The production line updates will enableBoeing to continue to affordably increase Chinook productionrates. The Chinook has served as the backbone of the US Armyaviation since the Vietnam era, revolutionising how it movestroops and supplies in combat, and save lives and deliver aid intimes of need.

Boeing has delivered more than 1,200 Chinooks to 18 oper-ators around the world since delivering the first to the US Armyon August 16, 1962. More than 800 are in operation today, con-ducting combat, cargo transport and humanitarian relief mis-sions. Chinook is also Boeing's longest continuously runningproduction programme, and according to company officials, itis in greater demand today than ever before. Boeing is sched-uled to deliver nearly 60 Chinooks this year and has submitteda multiyear .

Boeing celebrates half acentury of Chinooks

FOCUS ON ’COPTERS

Eurocpter AS565 Panther

Sikorsky S-76B

AgustaWestlandAW109 Koala


BUSINESS AIRCRAFT INRECOVERY MODE

BUSINESS AVIATION

KINGS OF THESKY: Aircraft linedup for display atLABACE 2012 thatwas recently heldat Sau Paulo

After the recession of 2008 and2009 hit every business aircraftmanufacturer, the aviation indus-

try is now showing signs of stability andrecovery. The results of the first sixmonths of general aviation industry ship-ments and billings were released by theWashington DC-based General AviationManufacturers Association (GAMA),according to which total shipments ofgeneral aviation aircraft rose to 918 inthe first half of 2012, a year-over-yearincrease of 5.9 per cent. Total billings forthose aircraft also increased, climbingfrom $7.2 billion to $8.2 billion. “We are

starting to see positive signs in the 2012shipment data,” GAMA’s President andCEO, Pete Bunce, said in a news release.“When coupled with the positive trendwe are seeing in the used market, wemay finally be witnessing the start of ourrecovery.”

Currently in India, the aviationindustry is responsible for 0.5 per cent ofthe country’s GDP and supports morethan 1.7 million jobs. Tony Tyler,Director General and Chief Executive ofthe International Air TransportAssociation (IATA) had recently statedat an event: “Aviation’s contribution tothe India economy could be much more.If India's 1.17 billion people travelled atthe same frequency as in the US, a mar-ket of 2.1 billion travellers would be cre-ated.”

Simply put, there is still a lot ofunexplored potential.

Typically, corporate profits and thenumber of used jets on the market havelong been key indicators of new business

jet sales. There is no jet lag for the pri-vate plane market in India and corporateentities are buying private jets for theirhigh-flying executives. According todata from the Directorate General ofCivil Aviation, Indian corporates, indi-viduals and private jet charter firmsbought 20 executive planes and helicop-ters for roughly $250 million betweenOctober 2011 and July 2012. This, inci-dentally, is a 25 per cent drop from thesame period last year. It was chartercompany Invision Air that took a bulk ofaircraft delivery during the previous cor-responding period.

In this positive scenario, we need totake a detailed look at the business jetsegment worldwide. Business jet deliv-eries increased 13 per cent in the firsthalf of the year, up to 294; Turbopropdeliveries increased 10.5 per cent to 243,while piston deliveries fell 1.6 per cent to381. GAMA reported 504 total world-wide deliveries of all models in the sec-ond quarter of 2012, up from 465 in the

With an improvedoutlook, the aviationindustry worldwide is onrecovery path. However,business jets, withrestrained growth, arepresenting a newscenario that canchange the marketscene in a big way. A report.

msnbcmedia

second quarter of 2011. Although therehas been growth, there has not been full-blown recovery. So, what are the reasonsthat the lag period between economicrecovery and a positive impact on busi-ness jet demand (that is normally of twoyears) is continuing this long?

Not all of Wichita’s — most of thegeneral aviation manufacturers are basedin the US city — major general aviationmanufacturers saw their deliveriesincrease. GAMA data showed that deliv-eries for majors such as Cessna AircraftCo., Hawker Beechcraft Corp. haverecently gone down though billings areup.

According to aerospace forecasterGeorge Tsopeis, Vice President ofOperations of Zenith Jet, a Quebec-basedaviation services business, the reasonsare many. He claims that, to an extent,the assumption that manufacturers build-ing wide-body jets have recovered, whilenarrow-body jetmakers are still feelingthe residual effects of the downturn, istrue. “While the recession of 2008 and2009 hit every business aircraft manufac-turer, their recoveries have more to dowith the competitiveness of their productlines and less with their focus on wide ornarrow-body airplanes,” said Tsopeis.

Corporations resorted to cost-cuttingto derive profits and not so much on rev-enue generation. In addition, high networth individuals, primarily those who

were new to aviation during the lastupturn, such as surgeons, CEOs, success-ful entrepreneurs, private equity typesand others, took a hit to their net worth inthe downturn, found unattractive financ-ing terms or lost their appetite for owner-ship.

Corporations are hanging on to liquidassets and deploying them elsewhere —which is actually positive for the indus-try. In addition, today demand is greaterfrom international markets, where buyersprefer new planes. The trend of cus-tomers interested in getting a great dealon a used airplane has taken a backseat.

In a forecast he just released, Tsopeispredicted that planemakers would deliv-er 736 business jets this year. That num-ber has been estimated to grow at 17 percent a year through 2016, when demandwill peak. Tsopeis has also projected aslowdown in 2017, but that slowdownwill be softer than the downturn thatbegan in late 2008. He has projecteddeliveries for the 10-year period from2012 to 2021 to total 10,377 planes, with$265 billion in revenues, based on 2012pricing.

For progress in the overall aviationsector in India, we have to take intoaccount a number of issues. To beginwith, fuel taxes are sucking the lifebloodfrom the Indian aviation sector, makingflying a very expensive affair. Ministriesat national and state-levels need to take

measures to control the situation. Theglobal average for fuel tax stands at 32per cent while in India, a combination ofexcise duty (8.24 per cent) and state fueltaxes (30 per cent), results in fuel makingup almost 45 per cent of operating costsfor Indian carriers.

To top it all, very few airports in ourcountry meet global standards.International airports such as those inNew Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore andHyderabad cater to international stan-dards and more are coming up, but theyhardly provide enough capacity to meetdemand.

There are other stumbling blocks aswell. One glaring example before us isthe recent penalties levied by theMumbai International Airport Limitedon non-Mumbai based aircraft for over-staying their approved time slots at theChhatrapati Shivaji International Airport,Mumbai. However, despite all this, Indiais still on the radar of global aircraft mak-ers. Major aircraft manufacturers such asAirbus, Boeing, Dassault, Bombardierand Embraer are vying with each other tosell their aircraft to India.

According to Airbus’ latest marketforecast, India’s market for new aircraftmakes it the world’s fourth largest inboth number of aircraft and value. Globalairline majors, therefore, are looking atopportunities offered by the fledglingIndian aviation market.


Despite the global economic slow-down, there is good news coming

from the general aviation sector in Brazilthat is rapidly growing. A recently-heldmajor air show in the country's capital,Sao Paulo, turned the spotlight on thebooming market, that drew around 100manufacturers including Canada'sBombardier, Gulfstream and HawkerBeechcraft from the US, Europe's Airbus,and Brazil's Embraer, as well as airplaneservice, insurance and maintenanceproviders. Growth in commercial andbusiness aviation over the past decadehas saturated Brazil's hub airports, leav-ing both commercial airlines and busi-ness aviation looking for alternatives.

At Sao Paulo’s Congonhas airport, 70planes were on display as part of theninth edition of the Latin AmericanBusiness Aviation Conference andExhibition (LABACE), which organiserssay is the second largest general aviation

show in the world after the Oshkosh airshow in the US state of Wisconsin.However, it is not as if the country hasbeen untouched by the global woes. Thesector soared 6.4 per cent from 2010 to2011, but is predicted to grow 4.5 to 5 percent from 2011 to 2012. "The generalaviation market has expanded consider-ably in Brazil unlike in other countries,"said Eduardo Marson, President of theBrazilian Civil Aviation Association(ABAG).

There is growth in all general avia-tion categories in Brazil, “but especiallybusiness aviation,” said Dorieldo Luisdos Prazeres, an air control expert at theBrazilian Civil Aviation Agency. “Theeconomy is booming, the companies, thenumber of rich people and this meanshigher sales of aircraft,” dos Prazeressaid. Brazil Secretary of Civil AviationWagner Bittencourt announced at theLABACE 2012 that a decree to permit

the private construction and commercialoperation of business aviation airportswas "in the final stages of consideration".

Support for business aviation is veryhigh. At Sorocaba, about 60 miles westof São Paulo, where Dassault Falcon andGulfstream service centres are already inplace, Brazilian Original EquipmentManufacturer Embraer has also ann-ounced a new centre.

In addition, two more general avia-tion airport projects have been unveiledfor the São Paulo region, one with onlysparse details. But the other presented atLABACE, by Catarina Aeroporto Exec-utive, featured a huge model under a tentsquare in front of the exhibit hall. Its lay-out showed two runways, the longer onebeing 8,100 feet, adjacent to a majorhighway.

A condominium developmentappears behind the runway and a com-mercial development across the highway.

BEELINE FOR BRAZIL AVIATION MARKET

IPAD APPS FOR CUSTOMER SUPPORT BY EMBRAERTwo new iPad applications by EmbraerExecutive Jets — the eTechPubs andCustomer Support and Services Guide— will provide customer convenience inaccessing all technical and customersupport information.

"These new applications are part ofour long-term strategy to continuedeveloping mobile product support solu-tions and move to tablets and othermobile devices, expanding the paperlessconcept not only in the cockpit but in themaintenance bay," said Edson CarlosMallaco, Vice President, CustomerSupport and Services, EmbraerExecutive Jets.

The eTechPubs applications caneliminate the need to carry the manualsin a 40-pound flight bag and offers, witha touch, real-time information at theirfingertips at all times. It will also easethe workload of maintenance techni-

cians. The information is updated wire-lessly. Customers with a valid technicalmanual revision service can use theeTechPubs app to download all techni-cal manuals to a single iPad for free.Currently available for Phenom 100 andPhenom 300 customers, the eTechPubsapplications will be expanded to theentire portfolio of Embraer ExecutiveJets later this year.

EMBRAER EXEC JETS IN TOP THREETwo major surveys have put EmbraerExecutive Jets in the top three compa-nies in the business aviation industry forproduct support for the first time.Indeed, both Aviation InternationalNews (AIN) and Professional PilotMagazines noted the rapid rise of thecompany in positive responses fromcustomers who recognise Embraer'swork in providing excellent customersupport and services.

“These results are a major achieve-ment and reflect the hard work and ded-ication Embraer Executive Jets has putinto customer support and services,”said Ernest Edwards, President,Embraer Executive Jets. “AIN cited a 13per cent improvement in our productsupport rankings over 2011, propellingus to second place. In Professional Pilot,we were awarded third place. But wewill not stop there. We must thank ourcustomers for the confidence they haveplaced in us and pledge to provide evenbetter support in the future.”

Embraer rocketed into the top threeon both surveys with 10 factors consid-ered in the AIN survey and seven in theProfessional Pilot survey.

“Improving upon these results willbe the guiding principal of EmbraerExecutive Jets for the future,” saidEdson Carlos Mallaco, Vice President,Customer Support and Services.

EMBRAER, CONVIASA DEAL FOR E190 JETS Embraer has recently announced anagreement with Venezuela's ConviasaAirlines for the sale of six 190 jets. Thedeal also includes 14 purchase optionsfor the same aircraft model. The value ofthe order, at list price, is $271.2 million,based on January 2012 economic condi-tions, and could total as much as $904million, if all of the options to buy areconfirmed. The first deliveries arescheduled to take place by the end of2012.

“We are certain that the E190 willplay an important role in increasing thequality and efficiency of air travel inVenezuela,” said Paulo Cesar Silva,President of Embraer, CommercialAviation. Conviasa is the eleventh cus-tomer of the E-Jets family in LatinAmerican and the Caribbean region andEmbraer sees a market in the region thatis projected to grow at an average of 7per cent per year over the next 20 years.

“We consider the E190 jet to be afundamental part of the process of reno-vating Conviasa’s fleet,” said CésarMartínez Ruiz, President of Conviasa.“These airplanes will allow us toincrease connections on both domesticand international routes.”

LEGACY 450 FABRICATION LAUNCHEDEmbraer Executive Jets recently beganthe fabrication of its newest executivejet, the Legacy 450, setting a majormilestone. “Even as we have been mak-ing progress on the Legacy 500, we havebeen anticipating this event for theLegacy 450,” said Ernest Edwards,President, Embraer Executive Jets. “The


Russian boost for in-flight diningExecutive jet in-flight diningprovider Alison Price On Air, part ofthe Alison Price Group, has experi-enced a significant growth indemand from clients travelling toRussia over the past 12 months,with an intense concentration oforders heading to the Moscowregion. Between 10 and 20 per centof total orders, as compared with 3per cent two years ago, are nowgoing to the Russian capital withmost demand focused on the busi-ness market. Clients includewealthy Russian individuals,Oligarchs and Russian corporations

expanding their business in theregion. The growth in numbers ofRussian billionaires and the rise inRussian private jet sales over recentyears have been well-documentedand Alison Price On Air hasembraced the region’s expansion.

Daniel Hulme, ManagingDirector of Alison Price On Air said:“Over the past 12 months, we havebuilt on our success in the Russianmarket and are delighted that dis-cerning Russian business clients arerepeatedly choosing us to handletheir in-flight business jet cateringneeds.”

BUSINESS AVIATION

RELISHING ONSUCCESS:Daniel Hulme ofAPOA


first metal cut for the Legacy 450 is alandmark event for the programme and isthe latest step in bringing this, the secondof our revolutionary jets to reality.”

A component of the forward fuselage,the part was milled from a block of alu-minum alloy by a five-axis, high-perform-ance machining centre. Fully automated,the milling process drew data directlyfrom a digital mockup of the 2,300-nauti-cal miles-range Legacy 450. Once com-pleted, the part was approved by a qualitycontrol process that employed the use oflaser devices for design validation withthe digital mockup.

The Legacy 450 is designed with thelatest engineering software, CATIA V5,with production planning for the businessaircraft simulated by digital virtual manu-facturing software.

AMAC AEROSPACE TO DEBUT AT AIREX 2012AMAC Aerospace, a leading provider ofcorporate aviation maintenance and com-pletion services, will be participating atthe 9th bi-annual AIREX, theInternational Civil Aviation and AirportsExhibition at Ataturk Airport, Istanbul,between September 6 and 9, 2012. Itsdebut presence at the show coincides withthe four-year-old company's inaugurationof Istanbul-based AMAC Turkey and thecompletion of a three-storey sales andservice centre. The new facility embraces1,500 sqm of hangarage, 1,200 squaremetres of shop floor space and 300 squaremetres of office space. It is expected to befully operational by the fourth quarter of2012, with a team of 17 operating fromthe facility. The new structure will com-plement the extensive hangar facilities atAMAC's EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse,Switzerland headquarters.

GAMA APPOINTS GM FOR ME, NORTH AFRICAGAMA, the global business aviation andservices group recently announcedRichard Lineveldt as General Manager,

Gama AviationFZE, with the taskof implementingits growth strategythroughout theMiddle East andNorth Africa.

Lineveldt hasbeen a key mem-

ber of the Gama management team sup-porting a number of recent expansion ini-tiatives in the region. These have includedthe set-up of the exclusive operation ofSharjah International Airport's ExecutiveHandling Service (Fixed BasedOperation) and the successful award ofGama's UAE Air Operators Certificate.

High airports no problem forLegacy 650s

Super Tucanos for IndonesianAir Force

Embraer’s Legacy 650 has receivedthe High Altitude Landing andTakeoff Operation (HALTO) certifi-cation by Agência Nacional deAviação Civil (ANAC) in Brazil,allowing an increased operatingenvelope for the large-category busi-ness aircraft. Certifications from theEuropean Aviation Safety Agency(EASA) in Europe and the FederalAviation Administration (FAA) inthe US are expected shortly.

“This certification comes afterthe ultra-large Lineage 1000HALTO certification in March andmeans all of our larger corporate jetscan now operate at the highest air-ports in the world,” said LucianoCastro, Vice President Programmes,Embraer Executive Jets. “This pro-

vides increased flexibility for opera-tors who need this versatility.”

The HALTO certification allowsthe Legacy 650 to access high-alti-tude airports around the worldincluding those in Argentina,Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru,China, India, Nepal and the US. TheLegacy 650 will now be able toserve airports located at altitudes upto 13,800 feet including La Paz,Bolivia at 13,357 feet and Shangri-la, China at 10,761 feet.

Offered as an option, the certifi-cation follows HALTO certificationfor the Legacy 600 by ANAC andFAA. EASA is expected to certifythe super mid-size aircraft forHALTO shortly after the approval isgranted to the Legacy 650.

Embraer Defense and Securityrecently delivered four light attackand tactical training A-29 SuperTucano aircraft to the Indonesian AirForce at a ceremony held in its facil-ity in Gavião Peixoto, São Paulo,Brazil. Indonesia is the first operatorof Super Tucano in the Asia-Pacificregion.

The four A-29 Super Tucano arefrom the initial batch of eight air-craft purchased by the IndonesianAir Force (IAF) in 2010. The SuperTucano was chosen by theIndonesian Defence Forces toreplace a fleet of OV-10 Broncos aspart of their equipment modernisa-tion exercise for years 2009-2014.

BEST IN THELEAGUE: TheEmbraer SuperTucanos

FLYING AHEAD:Legacy 650


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CRUISING HEIGHTS

With increasing demand fromtravel managers wanting tobook Low Cost Carriers(LCCs) in India, Amadeus

has created a framework that deliversSpiceJet’s full content to Amadeus e-Travel Management (AeTM), thecompany’s online multi-globaldistribution system corporate bookingtool, users via a direct API development.

For this leading transaction processorand provider of advanced technologysolutions for the global travel andtourism industry, this will be amilestone, highlighting the flexibleand open nature of Amadeustechnology, which is used by bothfull-service, low-cost, internationalairlines and small and medium-sizecarriers alike.

The AeTM platform allowsorganisations to integrate all elements ofits global travel programmes - includingtravel policies, preferred suppliers andnegotiated rates into one easy-to-usewebsite, saving them time and money inthe process. AeTM users in the countrywill also be able to book ancillaryservices such as in-flight meals whileensuring they are booking negotiatedcorporate fares. Moreover, the users willbe given the choice of flexible accountpayment options rather than being bound

by the credit card.Said Neil Mills,

Chief Executive Officer,SpiceJet, “Corporatetravel is on the rise inIndia with businesstravel expected to growby 10 per cent this year.We are delighted towork with industryleaders like Amadeus, toensure our fares areavailable to corporationsin India with thepotential to reach over6,000 corporationsworldwide.”

Bruno desFontaines, Vice President CustomerSolutions Group, Amadeus Asia Pacificadded that the move was a major stepforward for Amadeus in “growing ourAeTM business in India. With theexpected growth in corporate travel,especially through low cost travel optionsin India, offering SpiceJet content to ourcustomers in India is well-timed”.

Fontaines also pointed out thatAmadeus’ technology capabilities wouldhelp SpiceJet grow on both a local and

global level. “Having SpiceJet’scontent available through AeTMwill not only enrich Amadeus’airline content offering to Indiancustomers but also help

corporations in our networkexpand their global travel

programmes,” des Fontaines commented.Rakesh Bansal, CEO, Amadeus India

said, “This announcement will prove tobe a beneficial one for both Amadeus andSpiceJet. Looking at the increasingdemand of Corporates wanting access toSpiceJet’s content, Amadeus has offeredthis content through AeTM.”

AeTM is like a one-stop shop for acorporation’s travel needs, as it providesthe business traveller with an unparalledchoice and co ntrol over the trip, whilecomplying with their company’s travelpolicies.

TOPSTORY

INSIDE>

Cleartrip launchesiPhone app

Cleartrip launched its mobileapplication for iPhone with its

special split screen search facility.The split screen design was launchedby Cleartrip six years ago. Thesearch form hosts features such asgeo-location for selecting departureairport from the current location,recently searched airports and theability to easily swap the “from” and“to” cities with a tap. Additionally,there are filters that help narrowdown the search by sorting results byspecific airlines, flight timings ornon-stop flights. Payments can bemade using credit cards, debit cardsor a net banking account.Alternatively, payments can also bemade using Expressway by signinginto the Cleartrip account.

QUICK BAG DROPAT BRISBANE SITA and BCS Grouphave developed a newbag drop system

52 ¨̈

APPLES FOR ALLAVIATION REASONS Airlines are using theiPad to cover all spheresof the travel process

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PRINTMYTRIP ISCHOICE OF 1,000+ It has become the choiceof 1,000 travel agenciesacross Asia Pacific

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NEW TECHNICAL MILESTONE: Amadeus recently announced thatSpiceJet would now be available to users of Amadeus e-Travel

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Amadeus ropesin SpiceJet

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e D I G I T A L T R E N D S F O R T R A V E L L E R E X P E R I E N C E

• Since late 2010, Delta Air Lines andairport restaurant operator OTG Man-agement allow passengers to orderfood and drinks via one of 200 iPadsinstalled at dining areas at New YorkJFK and LaGuardia airports.

Airport food and drink

The device provides an easy and conven-ient start to your air journey by makingthe processes simpler.

Steve Jobs’ iconic iPad has crossed all boundaries and is being deployed by airlinesfor passengers, thereby reducing costs

iPad on the ground

Apples for all

The iPad is no more just anentertainment device. Itsportfolio has hugely diversifiedand airlines are putting Apple’s

versatile device to full use and making itavailable to passengers in their lounges,rent them out in the air, or use them as aself-service kiosk, a customer surveytool, and a food ordering tool.

• The Changi Experience Agents, whohave been at Singapore Changi Airportsince March 2011, each equipped withan iPad, assist passengers with a varietyof things.

• KLM has been offering eight iPadsin each of its two lounges at Ams-terdam Schiphol Airport since July2010 that can be used to access theInternet, watch content from the air-lines’ IFE programming, playgames, view KLM images and use aseries of pre-installed apps.

• Cathay Pacific offers 21 Wi-Fienabled iPads pre-loaded with appli-cations such as newspapers, maga-zines and games in its ‘The Cabin’lounge.

• ANA and airBaltic also make iPadsavailable upon request to loungeguests at Tokyo Haneda and Riga.

• Delta and OTG have also intro-duced the ‘OTG Media Bar’, wherepassengers can flip through theiPads to see what publications,movies, and music they like, down-load the content of their choice, andthen rent the device for their trip.

Media bar

Airport service

Airport lounge• At the ‘Airport Library’ at Amster-dam’s Schiphol Airport, there is areading table equipped with 9 iPadsand these can be used to see the col-lection, or watch videos about Dutchculture.

Airport library

jaunted.com


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in a way that goes beyond imagination, and is covering all spheres of the travel process

iPad tech in the skies

aviation reasons

Meanwhile, iPad competitorsSamsung (Galaxy) and Google(Chromebook) have partneredwith airlines to let passengers trytheir devices in-flight. AmericanAirlines provides SamsungGalaxy Tabs to its Business andFirst passengers on selectedroutes that are served by B757and B767 aircraft.

Google has teamed up withVirgin America to allow passen-gers to ‘test-fly’ the searchgiant’s new Chromebook com-puters for free.

The device is not only making processes simpler, efficient and cost-effective on ground, but also creating memories in the air.

Passenger surveys

• As part of its Rethink Quality ini-tiative, Finnair in a one-monthpilot in November 2010 offeredpassengers free use of iPads onboard select flights betweenHelsinki and Hong Kong.

• On a similar note, from June toAugust 2010, KLM used threeiPads for a survey among passen-gers on its regional subsidiaryKLM Cityhopper to test the feasi-bility of the device for passengerresearch.

In the cabin

• British Airways (BA) has armed 1,800senior cabin crew with an iPad 2 eachacross its entire long and short-haul fleetin a move to help with on-board customerservice.

• KLM has also provided a group of 50 sen-ior pursers with iPads on board.

• ANA, meanwhile, will provide each of its6,000 flight attendants with an iPad tabletin a move to reduce training costs.

• Spanish flag carrier Iberia has equippedits 600 pursors with iPads so that the cab-in attendants are able to offer high-qualityservice.

In the cockpit

• The Federal Aviation Administration(FAA), USA, in March 2011 approvedthe use of iPads in the cockpit but notduring all phases of a flight. Alaska Air-lines quickly responded by transitioningall 1,400-plus of its pilots to company-issued iPads. The iPads will improvefuel economy by cutting back on theweight on board and also allow for doc-uments to be updated more frequently.

• In June 2011, American Airlines (AA)started conducting the first tests of iPadsfor all phases of flight and it has becomethe first airline to be granted approval touse iPads in all phases of flight by FAA.

• United-Continental in August 2011announced that it would deploy iPads toits pilots in an effort to create a “paper-less flight deck”. These electronic flightbags (EFBs) will replace flight manualsand deliver aeronautical navigation chartsvia an application. The airline projectsEFBs will save nearly 16 million sheetsof paper a year which is equivalent tomore than 1,900 trees not cut down.

wordpress.comgottabemobile.com

macs

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In competitive times wherespeed and efficiency are a

must, SITA and BCS Group havedeveloped a new bag dropsystem that has been recentlyinstalled at Brisbane Airport. Itenables passengers to completethe bag drop process in just 25seconds.

Passengers on Jetstar’sdomestic flights were the firstto experience the system and asit progresses it will beexpanded to include otherairlines flying both domesticand international routes. RoelHellemons, General Manager StrategicPlanning and Development, BrisbaneAirport Corporation (BAC), said: “Peaktimes are already busy and will onlybecome busier, so we are committed tousing the best technology to improveoperations, enhance the passengerexperience and to make optimum use ofthe space we have available.” Hepointed out that the new self-service bag

drop process took less than 25 secondsper bag. The solution also deliveredspace efficiency to maximise the numberof baggage injection points.

To use the new service, Jetstarpassengers simply check-in at the kiosk,attach the bag tag then drop the bag atthe self-bag drop station where it isautomatically processed. The bag is thenweighed, the tag is scanned, the bagmeasured and dispatched for the flight.

25-second bag drop at Brisbane

Lufthansa’s “Blue Legends” Facebookapplication is one of the first ten

“Connected Applications” to be offered asa product of Foursquare’s newdevelopment platform. In a nutshell,Foursquare allows developers to createapplications that offer customisedexperiences to customers based on theircheck-ins.

Lufthansa has seized this new

opportunity in the Foursquare eco-systemto create official Lufthansa venues(including over 9000 flights named in theformat “Lufthansa Flight LH 400?) whereusers can check-in virtually to get specialbadges, ranks and rewards. For instance,once connected with Foursquare andFacebook, customers can earn badges such

as the “Early-Bird-badge” by checking inbefore six in the morning. There are morevirtual goodies as one travels more onLufthansa.

One of the features of the applicationis that it’s written in HTML5 which allowsit to be accessed from almost everyplatform — desktop and mobile — withease, without being confined to a closedapplication ecosystem (such as iOS or

Android).L u f t h a n s a

believes that thisc u s t o m i s e dexperience byoffering specialvirtual badges inrecognition for flyingthe airline will “opena whole newdimension of socialtravel experience forfrequent flyers whocan not only tracktheir countries andairports they’ve

visited with the application but cancompete with their friends to become the‘Expert Pilot’ on a route between twocities”. This rank is given to the personwho has travelled most between twodestinations — independent from theLufthansa flight he took or airport of thecity he travelled to.

Lufthansa goodies for logging in

FREEHDWALL.COM

BLOG

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.COM

BA gives passengers‘perfect day’

With thelaunch of a

new Perfect Dayapplication foriPhones, BritishAirways (BA)customers on themove can nowcapture and sharetheir own idealp e r s o n a l i s e dtravel guides andmore. It followslast year’s launchof the PerfectDay’s applicationon Facebook, which has enabledhundreds of BA customers to sharehow they would spend their perfectdays in locations around the worldflown to by the airline.

The new easy-to-use iPhoneapplication integrates and extends theexisting Perfect Day’s service. Thisincludes creating reviews or ‘travelsnippets’ using uploaded pictures anda short description, which are taggedto their exact location on Googlemaps as a 24-hour recommendation.Each itinerary can be quickly saved,edited and shared as a completePerfect Day with friends, or othertravellers, on Facebook or the iPhoneapplication, when they choose.

The application contains a TopPerfect Days feature to inspireanyone in each destination. Theseinclude Perfect Days with the most‘likes’, such as A Family Day inBerlin, A Cycling Tour of SanFrancisco, A Local’s Madrid,Mumbai Musts, Secret Rome, andPaloma Faith’s New York.

The application also includes‘Meet Me’ function, allowing usersto ‘pin’ and SMS an exact locationto meet, making it easier for friendsto quickly find the location ifthey’re in an unfamiliar city ordestination.

Richard Bowden, BAs’ DigitalMarketing Innovation Manager, said:“We’ve taken the Perfect Days socialmedia service a step further byproviding an intuitive smartphone appenabling customers to instantly view,capture and share their insiderknowledge and travel trips about theirfavourite places, while they’re in-destination.”


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The new web-based Printmytripsolution by Amadeus, transaction

processor and provider of advancedtechnology solutions for the globaltravel and tourism industry, has beenchosen by 1,000travel agencies acrossAsia Pacific in justsix months since its2012 launch. Amadeus first launchedAmadeus Printmytrip in 2011, and hasimproved the interface to be entirelyweb-based following the enormoussuccess of the launch.

Printmytrip is a complete itinerarymanagement tool that streamlines thecreation and delivery of informative,professional and branded traveldocumentation. This Amadeus solution

helps travel agenciesdeliver bespokeitinerary and increasedconvenience for

travellers while enhancing brand value.Travel agents using Amadeus

Printmytrip can feel confident knowingtheir customers have more of the rightinformation as well as a professional

looking travel document that meetsindividual travel needs. Bruno desFontaines, Vice President of CustomerSolutions, Amadeus Asia Pacific said:“This new solution can be tailored tosuit customers’ individual requests andwith its extensive range of documentcustomisation features, has thepotential to positively impact a travelagency’s brand. Travellers also benefitfrom the added convenience of havingadditional booking information on theiritineraries that previously was notpossible.”

Amadeus’ Printmytrip is choice of 1,000+

AirNarita InternationalAirport has launched a new

application — NRT_Airport Navi— that includes a dedicatednavigation function, whichprovides way-finding assistancefor passengers. Users of aniPhone or Android smartphonecan use the application todetermine their current locationin the terminal and finddirections to a desired destination.

Passengers can also register theirflight number to automatically receiveany changes to their flight information,

such as gate changes. The applicationalso provides flight information, airportmaps and information on a variety ofairport facilities and services.

To better manage traffic flow beforepeople board the aircraft, BluFi, the

Glasgow, Scotland-based Amor Group'sairport passenger-tracking system,combines Bluetooth and wi-fi to trackairport passengers movement throughairport terminals. The system, delivered bypartner company BlipSystems, allowsterminal operators to track a sample of upto 50 per cent of passengers entering theairport. The BluFi system works as anintegrated element of Chroma AirportCollaboration Database and requiresblipnodes — hardware boxes roughly thesize of standard routers developed by AmorGroup partner BlipSystems — to bedeployed in each area that is to bemonitored throughout the airport.

“When a passenger passes through anarea with a sensor, the BlipNode records aportion of the unique ID from their device,along with a time stamp,” said AlaistairDeacon, chief aviation technologist for theAmor Group. “It does not capture personalinformation and is completely anonymous.This data is only held for a 24-hour periodand complies with the recognised standardsfor privacy and data protection.”

BluFi provides improvedtraffic management

The speed that airlines can exchangethe electronic data that is vital for the

functioning of the air transport industry,was doubled by air transportcommunications specialist SITA for thepurpose of keeping upwith the London Gamestravel surge. This allowedSITA to manage themajor peaks in traffic atairports worldwide smoothly thissummer.

Electronic data exchange, commonlyreferred to in the air transport industry asSITA Messaging, underpins every aspectof operations with close to 100 millionmessages carried between airlines,airports, government regulators, suppliersand partners each day. Airlines transmitinformation regarding flights, passengers,crew, cargo and baggage and alsoexchange messages with various partners.At Heathrow Airport, Omni Serv, theground services provider that managesassistance for passengers with reducedmobility (PRM), has been using SITA’sPRM Data Access Services to feed the

special service requests coming frommore than 90 airlines to its performancemanagement system. This ensures that allpassengers with reduced mobility get thebest attention at Heathrow.

This year, SITAinvested significantly inits CommunityMessaging infrastructureahead of the summer

2012 Olympic. This was in response tothe overall industry trend towardsdistributing more messageselectronically, the changing requirementsin information needs and the increasingnumber of companies joining the SITAmessaging community.

Rukmini Glanard, SITA VicePresident, Communications andInfrastructure, said: “Our recentinvestment has led to significantimprovements in performance that haveexceeded even our own expectations. Ourcapacity to receive messages has doubledand we can now send more than twice thenumber of messages per second aspreviously.”

SITA doubled capacity for Olympics

AVIA

TION

TODA

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WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Lost! Never at Narita

A I R C A R G O & L O G I S T I C S

www.cruisingheights.in I September 2012

CRUISING HEIGHTS

Air cargo infra looks up

RED’s ready to roll outsame-day services

DHL’s footprintin the North

Facilities for air cargo are

being planned in Tier-2

and Tier-3 city airports

New service centre in

Kanpur ready to handle

1500 shipments a week

A dynamic parcel service

with same-day deliveries

will hit the nation shortly

BULLISH ON INDIA

Keen to get its share of the Indian market, the cargodivision of the privatis d Saudia Airlines has forged long-

term relationships and is ready for the long haul

SAUDIA CARGO IS


LAST IN/FIRST OUT

With the downturn in air cargo continuing,stakeholders are witnessing a shift to cheaperforms of transport such as ocean, railways androad. That has started to ring alarm bells inthe forwarding and airline sectors. Recent reports indicate that logisitics majorssuch as DHL, UPS and FedEx have startedinnovating to counter the shift from air toother forms of cheaper transport. In fact,these companies are now offering oceancarriage deals. According to David J.

Bronczek, President and CEO,FedEx Express, the company wasnow handling traffic out of Asiaon ocean. Even internationallogistics major Panalpina hasforecast zero growth in air cargoin the first half of 2012.

Perhaps, what is important tonote is that even thepharmaceutical industry — primetakers for air cargo — are alsoshifting to ocean. Obviously,logistics majors have startedinnovating to facilitate the

movement of these time-sensitive goods.DHL, for example, has brought out a trackingdevice with a battery life of 30 days that sendsout emails and SMS on the temperature andlocation of shipments on high seas. Accordingto DHL, the company saves a lot of money bymoving away from air to sea.

Within the country, however, the shiftfrom air has been to road transport — despitethe challenges of bad roads, local taxes andmuch more.

TRENDS

Air Partner has become thefirst aircraft charter brokerto launch a freight app thatfinds out the most suitableair carrier for the type ofcargo.The multi-lingualinteractive app uses theweight and dimensions of acargo to choose the aircraftmost suited to the task,suggesting up to fourdifferent models. In additionto this, the application alsoincludes images andcargohold diagrams, whichallow a greater understandingof the type of aircraft neededto move a particular item.

Available from the Applestore or as an online service,the database also includesinformation to accommodateoutsize freight. Based on thesearch solutions provided,users are then able tocontact an Air Partnerspecialist, who is able toprovide further assistance,including a quote for theconsignment’s planned routeand final aircraft loadabilitychecks.

“This innovationdemonstrates that we areleading the way when itcomes to developing newproducts to add to thetraditional freight charterbroking services thatcurrently exist.There aremore than 30 of the mostcommonly used charteraircraft types within thesystem to give clients a usefuleasy-to-use guide,” said CliveChalmers,Air Partner’s UKfreight manager.

Alarm bells for air cargo

“Airfreight continues tobe a barometer for

world trade, and theneedle has now swungback… All trade comesand goes in cycles, andthis is a down-cycle. It

will be followed byupswings in the

future.”

Lillian Chan Executive Director of Hong Kong AirCargo Terminals (HACTL), soon afterthe release of the half-yearly tonnage

figures.

Brussels Airport has recently started a 15-monthproject on GPRS in air freight.The project will beheaded by VIL (Vlaams Instituut voor Logistiek -Flemish Institute for Logistics), that last yearperformed a study on what Brussels should orcould do to strengthen its position as the pharmahub for Western Europe.

Several partners at the airport are participatingin this project.Among them are Centipharm, DHLGlobal Forwarding, CEVA,Aviapartner,WFS,Flightcare and Brussels Airlines. “Our aim is not tomonitor where things have gone wrong so this canbe used in legal discussions and claims, but to seewhere we can improve facilities, procedures orsupporting equipment to guarantee the cool chain,”said Steven Polmans, Head of Cargo at BrusselsAirport.

As an airport, Brussels would like to facilitatebetween all players and the goal is to comfort theindustry by making sure that everything is done atthe airport to guarantee the cool chain.

During the project period, several lanes will betested.This will give the industry the possibility totest different types of equipment and lanes to seeif real-time monitoring with GPRS equipment willbe possible on a larger scale.

Brussels Airport will use the date andinformation gathered during the project todetermine possible bottlenecks in the chain wherethe airport is involved.All problems that arise willbe tackled.

Airport project to iron out coolchain flaws

Even as plans areunderway for theformal inauguration

of the new terminal atChennai by Prime MinisterDr Manmohan Singh, thereare moves to take theairport away from thegovernment-controlledAirports Authority of India(AAI) and hand it over toprivate operators. In fact,the move also includes theKolkata aiport that isundergoing modernisation.Built at a considerableexpense by AAI, theterminals at the twoairports are comparable tothose at privately-heldairports at Delhi, Mumbai,Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

The AAI would not liketo give up any of theairports having lost aconsiderable portion of itsincome when Mumbai andDelhi were handed over toprivate operators. Today,

with only two metroairports — at Chennai andKolkata — in its charge, AAIwould virtually have toclose shop if the “politicalbosses” decide to let it goout of government hands.On his part, AAI ChairmanVP Agrawal said that theAuthority did not want aPrivate Public Partnership(PPP) for the operation ofthe terminal and the airportbut “the PlanningCommission insists onprivatising the Chennaiairport”. He said thoughAAI was not interested inprivatising the airport, ifand when the need arose,the AAI could hold 51 percent of the stake to own theairport and let any privateparty handle the operations.

As for cargo operations,the AAI has put in a lot ofefforts to upgrade the cargooperations at Chennai;incidentally, it is part of the

initiatives taken by theMinistry of Civil Aviation toboost cargo operations inall the airports operated byAAI. The Authority hadother pressing reasons too.With two of its majorairports — Delhi andMumbai — no longer underits belt, AAI was bound totake stock of the changedground realities and reviewthe policy of cargooperations. A review wasalso necessitated due to thechanging market forces: anumber of industrialtownships and regionswithin the country withsurplus agriculturalproduce demanded theavailability of air cargofacilities from the nearestairport to not only savetransportation time but alsocut costs, according to asenior AAI official.

At Chennai, forexample, the perishable


CARGO

At last, air cargoseems to be gettingthe attention itdeserves. All acrossthe country, movesare on to set upfacilities that wouldboost air cargo. AGreenfieldinternational cargoairport is on thecards near Delhiwhile at Ahmedabad,Pune and Indore, forexample, plans arebeing drawn up toenhance facilities forair cargo. A report.

AIR CARGO RECEIVESA FIRM BOOST

ENHANCINGINFRASTRUCTURE:Cargo freighters atthe Chennai airport


cargo facilities have beenupgraded. The airport hasbeen handlingpharmaceuticals thatconstitute around 1.5 percent of the total cargohandled. The presentinfrastructure includesthree chambers of coldstorage with differenttemperature specifications.It also has a further 500 sq.mt storage area in thePerishable Cargo Centre. Anew facility with six coldstorage chambersmeasuring an area of26,000 sqm has also beencreated. Said ChairmanAgrawal, “We are puttingASRS (Automatic StorageSystem), which will increasethe capacity manifold... Itwill be sufficient to takecare of the cargo till 2017-18.”

Though Chennai is nowafter Mumbai and Delhi intonnage, it is the fastestgrowing and is increasinglybecoming popular withinternational carriers withChina Airlines and Thaibeing the last big users.Chennai handled 19,843

tonnes of cargo in themonth of February thisyear. Of the 8,321 tonnes ofimport cargo, 3,131 tonnescomprisedelectronics/electrical items.Exports were to the tune of11,523 tonnes.

Chennai airport staffhas voiced its concernsabout the airport going toprivate hands. According toL George, the RegionalSecretary (Metro) of theAirports AuthorityEmployees' Union (AAEU),there is no need to handover the airport to privateplayers. After all, it wasgranted 'Mini Ratna'(literally a mini gem) statusin 2008 when it fulfilled thecriteria for the position withcontinuous profits for lastthree years. To top it all, itwas also chosen as the bestperforming airport in thesouth-eastern region forcargo operations for theyear 2012 by the South EastCEO Conclave (SECC is agroup from the shippingand logistics industry andhas emerged as theauthoritative recognition of

quality service, bestpractices and innovation inthe various segments of thecargo and logistics sector).

Whether it remains ingovernment hands or goesto a private operatorremains to be seen but whatis important is the fact thatthe move could spell out thebeginning of the end of AAI,a pride among government-owned units andincidentally a totally debt-free company. AAI's airporttariffs are lower than thosecharged at Delhi andMumbai.

Notwithstanding thefinancial condition of thecountry's carriers,stakeholders have not beendeterred from continuing —or even initiating —infrastructure projects thatwill help the air cargoaviation sector flourish.Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities arewaking up to the immensepotential of air cargo. Nolonger limited to the metrocities, states in the west ofIndia such as Gujarat andMaharashtra and evenMadhya Pradesh in central

India, are chalking outelaborate plans.

The Gujaratgovernment, for example,has revamped its aviationdepartment. At the launchof the Gujarat civil aviationpolicy in June 2010, thegovernment note pointedout: “Air cargo movementhas grown nearly by 19 percent as compared to 10 percent and 9 per cent ofgrowth in shipping andrailways respectively. In thecontext of Gujarat, one ofthe most industrialisedstates in India, thegovernment wishes toencourage private players toutilise the air-cargo routeand include suitableprovisions for making aworld-class cargo hub inGujarat.” According to thatpolicy, the federalgovernment tasked thenewly-created Gujarat StateAviation InfrastructureCompany Limited(GUJSAIL) for thedevelopment of aviationand related infrastructurein the state. Hence, therecent invitation for

UPPING THE ANTE: Amritsarairport has geared to facilitatetransport of perishable cargofrom the city.

CARGO


proposals fromentrepreneurs to start cargoand passenger serviceswithin the state.

Gujarat has one of thefastest growing economiesin the country andaccording to a report thatappeared in The Economistin July last year, the state'sinfrastructure could becompared with that ofGuangdong in China.Consider the facts: Gujarataccounts for 16 per cent ofIndia's industrial outputand 22 per cent of itsexports. While 11 airstripsacross the state have beenidentified, the governmenthas clearly specified thekind of aircraft that wouldbe needed. Even as movesto start aviation servicestake place, plans that weredrawn up to establish an aircargo hub for perishablegoods at the SardarVallabhbhai PatelInternational Airport atAhmedabad are fructifying.

The airport's cargopotential is healthy.Ahmedabad airport handlesonly two per cent of thecargo from India. Of this 83per cent is handled by the

airport with 44 per centcargo being domestic and56 per cent cargointernational.

Piloted by the GujaratAgro Industries, anotherfederal governmententerprise, the cargo hub isexpected to cater to thehuge quantities of pharmaproducts, vegetables, fruitsand flowers that the state ofGujarat exports. While theairport is within easy reachof Middle Easterncountries, it will cater to thediaspora from Gujarat,spread out all over theworld. To begin with, thecargo hub will be able totake away a sizeable shareof exports that are nowbeing sent through Mumbaiairport. In fact, around 40per cent of the vegetablessent out through Mumbaiare from Gujarat. With thelack of space at Mumbaiand the traffic gridlockaround the airport that isan almost daily occurrence,perishables often cannotmake it to theirdestinations.

The Ahmedabad cargocomplex — delayed foraround two years because of

land issues — is all set tostart operations. With itsthree temperature-controlled cold storages(zero, minus zero and plus10 degree) besides X-raymachines, the cargocomplex is, perhaps, one ofthe most modern in thecountry. Incidentally,Emirates picks up around170 tonnes of cargo a weekfrom Ahmedabad airportmeant for the Middle East,the US and Europe and inNovember, another MiddleEastern airline — EtihadAirways — will startoperations to Ahmedabad.

However, for themoment, the moves to startperishable cargo handlingfrom Ahmedabad airporthave been halted by theAAI. According to the AAI,the Gujarat Agro IndustriesCorporation (GAIC)breached the contract bybringing in Cargo ServiceCentre (CSC) and violatedthe terms under which ithad been allotted 3,600square metres of area at theairport for seven years.

Air cargo stakeholdersin Ahmedabad are hopingthat the points of

contention between theGAIC and the AAI will besettled in a short time.

Meanwhile, moves byAAI are on to acquire landnear Pune's Lohegaonairport to develop adedicated air cargo facility.Today, only twointernational flights — toFrankfurt and Dubai —operate from the airport.Once the cargo terminal isready, more internationalflights would start.

Plans have also beendrawn up for theenhancement of cargofacilities at Indore's DeviAhilyabai Holkar Airport.Recently, Ajit Singh,Minister for Civil Aviation,expressed the hope thatcargo facilities at the airportwould transform businessaround the commercialcapital of Madhya Pradesh.

Nearer Delhi, the ChiefMinister of HaryanaBhupinder Singh Hooda hasmoved a proposal to build aGreenfield cargo airport forinternational operations inRohtak. In fact, theHaryana government hasalready identified 2,770acres for the project.

The air cargo communityhas been waiting for quite awhile for all the pieces in thepuzzle to fall into place butnow that some moves havebeen made, it will not be longbefore the air cargo industrygets its rightful place in theaviation sector in the country.

BUSINESS AS USUAL: The sceneat the cargo warehouse at Pune airport

ENHANCING CARGO FACILITIES:Haryana CM Bhupinder SinghHooda has decided to set up anairport for cargo.

"Saudia Cargo is here forthe long run"


CARGO

Q:How do you findbusiness now? Itlooks like the second

downturn is coming.

A:When we look at thefigures recently thatthe World Air Cargo

data has provided, we haveseen an upward growth tra-jectory at Saudia. We haveexperienced growth in themarkets and we have seennew opportunities in themarkets that we want toexplore. We have become astrong player in the Indiansub-continent market. AtSaudia Airlines Cargo Co.we are positive and are bull-ish on the future.

You have been a very lowkey player as opposed to thebig three from the MiddleEast: Emirates, Etihad andQatar. Whatever you told mejust now stands in compari-son to the big three.We will get back the marketshare that we deserve. Youare aware that we are nowprivatised. The impact ofthat is that we are veryvigorously and activelypursuing opportunities. Wehave forged greatpartnerships with a lot offorwarder partners all overthe country and across theregion that I represent. Thisarea is the largest market

for Belly Capacity in the SVworld. Therefore, we arelooking at going into themarket with a product or aservice we truly believebenefits our partners. Wehave on an average twelvepassenger flights in theregion and fly to Dammam,Riyadh and Jeddah. If Ilook country-wise, we flyfrom Sri Lanka andBangladesh. In Pakistan, wehave Islamabad, Karachi,Lahore and Peshawar. InIndia, Mumbai, Delhi,Lucknow, Hyderabad,Bengaluru, Kochi, Calicutand Trivandrum. Thefreighter destinations are

three: Mumbai, Trivandrumand Dhaka. If I look at themarket that we areoperating from: we are avery strong player in theDhaka market where inaddition to passengerflights we operate twoweekly freighters to Dhaka.We have added a thirdweekly freighter into thismarket. That sort of givesyou an idea of how seriouswe are in the Bangladeshmarket. Our partners haverealised that we are aserious player and we arehere for the long run. So isSaudia Cargo in the bigthree? With 145 passenger

"Saudia Cargo is here forthe long run"Keku Gazder, Regional Director, Cargo - Indian Sub-Continent, Saudia Cargo, isupbeat about India. In this conversation with Tirthankar Ghosh, Gazder speaksabout Saudia Cargo’s bold and visionary policy to gain marketshare

aircraft and 13 freighters:Definitely yes.

What has been the tonnagelike for the region?It is about 7,000 tonnes permonth.

But now with the Eurozonecrisis, are there any plans tolook towards China andSouth-East Asia?We have got 13 freighters inour fleet which is a mix ofMD-11s and Boeing 747freighters. You have tomake best possible choiceswhere you want to go. Weare already in the Far Eastwith Hong Kong, Shanghai,Bangkok, Saigon andGuangzhou. So we arealready in the key marketsin the APAC region.Interestingly, we see astrong request for capacityfrom APAC to the ISCregion via the kingdom.

There are many carriers thathave cut down capacities. Insuch a market, what is thestrategy Saudia is following?We are operating on a boldand visionary strategy. Wewant to be in the long runso we would rather delayour entry into the market.You need to have confidencein the market. The wholeidea is of growing togetherwith your partners. Evenwhen the volumes were low,in places like Bangladesh,for example, we neverwithdrew capacity. Wecontinued to fly to Dhaka,adding more and morefreighters. Our strategy iswell-defined. A goodexample of our ingenuity isa product called Bellyflex.Bellyflex is a product wherewe discount a sizablepercentage of the rates inreturn for a deferredservice. The client canchoose an air freight optionthat provides the flexibilityof a longer transit time toreach the destination. So,the shipper can still moveby air and he is not forcedto use the sea. He gets agood saving, which makes

him comfortable giving usthe cargo at that rate. Thisis a win-win situation forpartners and shippers.

Are you planning to put inmore capacity in India?For sure, we want to grow inIndia. We see moreopportunities to grow. Wewant to be sure about theopportunities that we have inIndia. Again, I am reiteratingwe do not want to step intothe market where there is atemporary boom. That is notour strategy. We want togrow and develop the marketfor a sustainable period oftime.

With your partners, do youdo services such as door-to-door?We are a professionalairline and our primaryfocus is to move freightairport-to-airport. We arenot into warehousing, third-party logistics and logisticalactivities. We do work withthird-party truckingcompanies, which delivercargo to airports that we donot fly to.

How is it working in India?Commercially, the biggestchallenge is processes andprocedures. The long time ittakes to process a shipmentis not the way to go if wewant to grow our air freightbusiness. We have to bemore efficient in thehandling of cargo and moreefficient in the systems weuse. Look at the dwell timein certain airports aroundthe world and one wonderswhy can't we replicate thesame? We have world-classfacilities in Delhi,Bengaluru, Hyderabad andMumbai. These arefantastic passenger airportsbut on the cargo front it'sthe processes that need tobe redefined and makebusiness industry friendly.India's GDP figures aretouching 7.5 to 8.0 per centand to exploit this growth,future planning is a must.We have to address the

hurdles and extend ourvision for the next 20-25years. It has to be acollective effort byeverybody: from shipper toforwarder to the ground-handling agent to theairline to the customsauthority. Every link in thechain is important andindispensible to the other.Our industry is moreperishable than perishableitself. In the air freightindustry, the minute thecargo door closes, everysingle kilo of capacity,which is not utilised, hasalready perished. Ourdecisions rest upon theairport's ability to handlemy freighters and we needanswers to questions suchas aircraft turnaround time,landing rates, easyavailability of parking lots,etc. How quickly can our

client partner clear theircargo at the airport alsomeans a lot to our decisionabout which airport weshould go to. It can beunderstood against thebackground that in the airfreight business, the word

air freight means significanturgency. Why wouldsomebody want to pay ussix times more as comparedto sea freight if it is noturgent?

Among the Indian airports,where do you get morebusiness from? If you want one name, it'sMumbai. That is more to dowith the present capacityavailable. However, wehave to look at the contextof capacity versus themarket. Basically, we areflying five types of aircraftin this region. We havepassenger aircraft such as777s, 330s, 320s and 747freighters and MD 11freighters. We want to besure about the commitmentwe give to our partners.

Since we are spread outto eight airports in India,we concentrate more oneach airport and thenearby areas to feed theflights. The south isgrowing and it is our focusarea because of heavydensity of airports. Forexample, based in Chennaiif I take a 90-minute flight,I will cover seven-eightexport production andinternational airport-basedcities down south. And ifyou take a 90-minute flightfrom Delhi, how manyinternational airports willyou touch? South is wherethe FDI and foreigninvestors are flocking andthe key verticals areinvesting today. Take auto,electronics, hardware, IT,telecom — all these aregoing to south.

In addition, itcomprises cities such asHyderabad, Bengaluru,Kochi, Calicut, Trivandrumand Chennai, which giveme various options. I cantruck my cargo aroundbased on capacity availablefrom Chennai to Bengaluru,Chennai to Cochin, etc. Butcan I truck business fromMumbai to Delhi to connecta flight and make itcommercially viable?


We hhave ggot13 ffreighters iin oourfleet wwhich iis aa mmixof MMD-111s aandBoeing 7747freighters. YYou hhaveto mmake bbestpossible cchoiceswhere yyou wwant ttogo.

KEKU GAZDER,Regional Director-Cargo,Indian subcontinent,Saudia CCargo

“

“


CARGO

Even as internationalexpress majorscontinue to makeinroads in the

Indian domestic market, ahome-grown logisitics set-upis getting ready to changethe concept of door-to-doordelivery when it launchesRED Express RED (acronymfor Real Time ExpressDistribution). Promoted byone of the country'sexperienced cargo groupsthat has been servingvarious segments of theaviation cargo industry withdistinction for well over 26years, RED Express hopes tostart operations by the endof the current calendar year.RED's sister concerns spanthe airline cargo industry:from GSA representation toproviding cargo airlines andcargo warehouse terminaloperators customized cargoapplications and ITESservices.

The new venture hasalready received financialinvestments from aSingapore-based freightorganization with businessoperations in Malaysia,Philippines and other partsof the Asia Pacific region.RED is now activelydiscussing with internationalexpress operators for tie-upsin the Asia Pacific region aswell as all around the world.

RED Express will be thecountry's first dynamic door-to-door express parcelservice provider. It will offerextended pickup anddelivery services that aredependable and timeguaranteed, providing valueto business entities, big orsmall, domestic or global.Services will include expresssame day service and alsocollection of the value of theconsignment, which can be akey added value to thegrowing e-retailing businessin India.

RED will concentrate onsmall packages and generaldistribution services, on atime-definite basis.Significant investments havebeen planned in technology,

infrastructure, training ofpersonnel and regulatorydevelopment. The valueproposition lies in processinnovation,

technology, multiplefrequencies, pricing, track 'n'trace and customerbusiness/accountinformation. Uniquebusiness solutions forcustomers with high degreeof information transparencyfor schedules will set newstandards in the industry.

The company is aimingfor a perfect integration ofpeople, processes andtechnology. These effortswill be supported by a user-friendly website, a first-of-its-kind online bookingengine, a proactiveapproach, an interactivecustomer dashboard, realtime information,promptness of response

through its 24 x 7 CustomerService Interaction Center(CSIC), etc.

The geographical reachon a pan-India basis will bethrough a robust networkthat will be based on the'Hub and Spoke model'. Thefirst phase will see 10operation hubs or MasterDistribution Centers (MDCs)and 48 Sub DistributionCenters (SDCs) in more than23 major cities in thecountry. This will bestrengthened by a vastfranchisee network in Tier-2and 3 cities. The distributionnetwork will be backed by afleet of RED Liners,operating on the principle ofscheduled departures andarrivals with multiplefrequency managed by a welltrained and focused crew.

With its tagline,“Delivered as Promised”,

RED will be banking on itspragmatic standardoperating procedures and itsindigenously developed web-based IT platform. Inaddition, the Unit LoadDevices (ULD) will haveunique colour coding andsecurity features that wouldensure reduction ininstances of lost packagesand irregularities, whileimproving the safety andsecurity of the consignmentsduring transit.

As Shivi Suri, RED'sProject Head - Express andSaurabh Pathak, OperationHead-Express pointed out,Real Time ExpressDistribution will offer speed,flexibility, reliability,information transparencyand value services “to helpsatisfy the ever changingdemands of the customersanytime and anywhere”.

India’s going RED!Venturing into a territory that poses stiff challenges, REDExpress is all set to roll out its dynamic parcel serviceacross the nation.

FORMIDABLE TEAM: The RED Express team at the launch of the operations that will begin at the end of the year.


CARGO JOTTINGS

IBS holds conference on air cargo Representatives of leading freighter airlines of the worldassembled in Singapore recently to share insights and discuss keyissues shaping the global air cargo industry. The conference, titled‘CONVENTUS’, was organised by IBS Software Services. Over 40senior executives, including global head of logistics from Qantas,Lufthansa, South African Airways, British Airways, All NipponAirways, Nippon Cargo Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Indigo, IACT,Malaysia Airlines, Turkish Airways and Bangkok Airwaysparticipated in the three-day event.

Set against a background of plunging profits for the aviationbusiness worldwide, industry stalwarts discussed some of thecritical challenges facing the sector and how advancements intechnology could be leveraged to tide over the crisis. Theimportance of re-defining the relationship between the aviationindustry and the IT industry to prevent yield erosion and improveasset utilisation was discussed at length. The other topics ofdiscussion included ‘future proofing air cargo movement’,‘digitisation air cargo supply chain’, ‘cargo 2000’, ‘implementinge-freight’ and ‘growth through value’. Top officials of the airlineindustry body, IATA, also participated in the discussion.

CAPELLA drives logistics managementCAPELLA, an enterprise wide web-based CFS/ICD managementsystem, is now on cloud anddeveloped on Microsoft WindowsAzure platform. CAPELLA iscurrently being used by many global

CFSs and ICDs successfully for streamlining their containeroperations. Continental Warehousing Corporation Limited is thefirst CAPELLA client to go live on Azure Platform.

Kale’s CFS Management System — CAPELLA caters to specificneeds of CFS and ICD operators. It has been developed on thefoundation of Kale’s extensive domain knowledge andtechnological expertise in the logistics space. It is an enterprise-wide, robust, web-based system that automates the disorganisedCFS/ICD processes to give the operator instant access toinformation and provides the management with completevisibility of their business at all times. CAPELLA can be deployedboth as licensed software and as a SaaS-based application. AMicrosoft Windows Azure platform base provides CAPELLAclients the operational efficiency, development flexibility,scalability, data security amongst many other business benefits.

FFFAI gets push from CBEC Shantanu Bhadkamkar, Chairman, ‘Federation of Freight

Forwarders’Associations inIndia’ welcomedthe initiative takenby SK Goel,Chairman, CBEC,for inviting thestakeholders for ajoint conferencewith the SecretaryGeneral of WCO.He informed thatthe federation waskeen to strengthen

its partnership with customs and enhance professionalism ofcustom brokers in the fast-evolving environment in whichcustoms and business operate.

Amongst the issues that were put forth by ShantanuBhadkamkar, Chairman of ‘Federation of Freight Forwarders’Associations in India’, were expression of commitment of FFFAIand its members for good business practices including: being law-compliant and tax-efficient, participation in initiatives related tosecure and safe supply chain and facilitation of fast movement ofcargo through borders.

He also expressed that customs was amongst the mostaccessible government department and regular interaction hadfacilitated quick problem resolutions.

Celebi guides Olympics 2012 fervour With Olympics 2012 fervour at its peak, GameOn India andCelebi Delhi Cargo Terminal Management India Pvt. Ltd,recently organised an inaugural seminar, “For the Love of

DHL expands in North India DHL is further expanding in the markets of North India andofficially inaugurated a new service centre facility in Kanpur.The new facility that is spread over 2,000 sq ft with a capacityto handle a volume of close to 1500 shipments a week, wasinaugurated by Irshad Mirza, Chairman, Mirza InternationalLimited and Malcolm Monteiro, CEO, South Asia, DHLExpress.

Jettainer and airberlin sign deal Jettainer was appointed to manage and maintain theentire ULD fleet of airberlin. Jettainer has also decided tointroduce a number of ecologically friendly lightweightcontainers at airberlin in order to help decreasing theemission. 750 ULDs will gradually be replaced by modernlightweight containers and they will come into operationon long-haul flights of airberlin’s A330-300 and A330-200 aircraft. By using this new technology, airberlin willbe able to reduce the gross weight of such an aircraft by upto 200 kilogrammes per flight.

“Wherever weight can be reasonably reduced, we useless fuel and lessen the burden on the environment,” saidHelmut Himmelreich, Chief Operating Officer forairberlin. “The lightweight containers are a newcomponent in our “eco-efficient flying” measures, whichwe will expand this year to achieve our goal of a specificfuel consumption of 3.4 litres per 100 passengerkilometres.” The weight reduction enables airberlin to

ONE MORE IN THE KITTY: Irshad Mirza, Chairman, Mirza InternationalLimited along with Malcolm Monteiro, CEO, South Asia, DHL Expressand R S Subramanian, Country Manager, DHL Express India inauguratesthe new service centre.

FLORAL TRIBUTES: Shantanu Bhadkamkar,Chairman FFFAI, welcoming Kunio Mikuriya bypresenting a floral bouquet.


Sport”. The event aimed atbringing together people fromvarious walks of life for unitingthem by their shared love forsports. Celebi and GameOn

India took this initiative with intent to provide a commonplatform to the working-class professionals and expatriatesfor playing a sport of their choice with like-mindedprofessionals.

The event witnessed the presence of eminent speakerssuch as Joy Bhattacharya, CEO, Kolkata Knight Riders;Reena Kaushal Dharmshaktu, first Indian woman to ski tothe South Pole; Ashok Rathod, Founder, Organisation forSocial Change; Zafar Iqbal, former hockey captain; RahulVerghese, Founder, Running and Living Infotainment Pvt.Ltd and Shiva Keshavan, first Indian representative tocompete in luge at the Winter Olympic Games. Thesestalwarts descended upon a common platform for sharingtheir experiences and inculcating the importance of sportsand being fit amongst the busy working-class professionals.

CEVA unveils mobile app for shipments CEVA Logistics launched its first mobile app, CEVA Mobile,which enables customers to track the exact location of everyshipment using their iPhone or iPad. Every year, CEVA shipshundreds of millions tonnes of cargo for over 15,000 customersworldwide. The app is CEVA’s latest move in using technologyto provide customer value and is a simple and flexible way tosearch and retrieve the status of airfreight, oceanfreight andcustoms brokerage shipments worldwide. CEVA Mobileprovides easy, on-the-go access to shipment tracking using onlythe customers’ shipment reference or house number.

Peter Dew, CEVA’s Chief Information Officer said, “This newapp is a clear example of how we are using technology andinnovation to improve the overall service our customers receive.Visibility is an integral part of any supply chain and this app, incombination with our online CEVA Trak tool, makes it quickand convenient to see exactly where a customer’s goods are atany given point in the supply chain.”

Etihad Cargo leads record tonnage Etihad Cargo posted record monthly figures for July withnetwork volumes approaching 33,000 tonnes, an increase of 18per cent on the same month last year. Thefigures surpass a previous month record of31,700 tonnes, which Etihad Cargo carriedin March 2012.

Total revenues for the month were up 4per cent on June and up 8 per cent on thecorresponding period the previous year.Last month, Etihad Cargo reported strongH1 2012 results, with tonnage up 21 percent to 175,000 tonnes.

Etihad Airways’ Chief Planning andStrategy Officer, Kevin Knight said, “We’ve seen a goodrecovery in business from Europe after the second quarter.Also, the capability of our fleet with the addition of the 747-400freighter has enhanced our overall schedule flexibility, andhelped support significant project work in what was also arecord month for our charter team.

Business across and through the Middle East has remainedstrong into the holy month of Ramadan. New routes includingour recently-launched six-times-a-week passenger service toLagos and our new freighter service to Dammam havebroadened the reach for our customers. Looking ahead, weexpect to maintain strong freight performance over the thirdand fourth quarters of 2012.”

TNT shows improved Q2 results TNT Express once again bounced back to record improvedresults in its second quarter despite increasingly difficulteconomic conditions. The Netherlands-based integrator saw itsoverall revenues up 1.7 per cent to €1.8-billion for the threemonths to the end of June 2012, with operating income up 67per cent to €7-million.

TNT Express said it had been quite surprised by the stablevolumes in Europe, Middle East and Asia, considering thechallenging economic conditions.

Commenting on the results, CEO Marie-Christine Lombardsaid her company was able to maintain profitability in anincreasingly challenging economic environment. She said, “InEurope, good volume growth underscores the strength of ourdiversified product portfolio. Cost savings and revenue-enhancement initiatives also supported profits. Performance inAsia Pacific and Americas continued to improve as a result ofbusiness development and restructuring measures.”

On the occasion, Malcolm Monteiro commented, “India isa key focus market for DHL Express and figures among the topfive markets globally. For our business in India, we arecommitted on enhancing our services and offering by investingin infrastructure which means ground facilities, fleet and aircapacity.” He added: “With the new service centre facility inKanpur, we are now closer to the market, ensuring thatcustomers in and around Kanpur continue to receive the

highest level of service from DHL.”DHL Express has beenservicing a wide variety of customers in and around Kanpur inleather and leather products, apparel and textiles, banking,farm and industrial equipments sectors. The new servicecentre facility will serve as a DHL’s local pickup, delivery andsorting operations and is fully operational. The new facility willalso cater to customers requirements of same day delivery fromUnnao, Banthar, Panki, Jajmau and Chaubepur.

lower the fuelconsumption of eachaircraft by more than30,000 litres per year.This goes along with areduction of theannual carbon-dioxideemission by up to1,100 tonnes peraircraft.

“Being responsiblefor the globalmanagement andmaintenance ofairberlin´s ULD fleet makes us very proud — last but notleast due to the fact that airberlin’s partner Etihad Airwayshas appointed Jettainer to supply, manage and maintain itsULD fleet last year already,” said Alexander Pluemacher,Managing Director of Jettainer.

Kevin Knight

JOINING HANDS: Jettainer cargobeing loaded into airberlin plane

In a rather unusual incident, a manwas kicked off a flight for his inde-cent clothing. The man who waswearing baggy pants was asked topull up his pants but he refused. “Itwas to the point where his entire bot-tom was hanging out. And that's notappropriate. We have a lot of cus-tomers on the plane, a lot of childrenon the plane.

Our flight attendant asked him ifhe would kindly pull (his pants) upso that they were at a more appropri-ate level,” Spirit Airlines spokes-woman Misty Pinson told CBSChicago.

As a result, the man became“verbally abusive” and ultimatelypolice was called and the man andhis companion were escorted off theplane. “A safe and pleasant environ-ment for all customers on board isour top priority,” Pinson added.

“When our crew members askpassengers to comply with a request,it is taken keeping in mind with thebest interest of all of our customers.”

66

GLOBETROTTING

It was the strangest flight that Bourne Lega-cy actor Jeremy Renner could have everimagined. But it did happen to him. Heaccidentally took a Viagra pill instead of asleeping aid making his journey veryuncomfortable.

The actor later revealed this strangeincident to chat show host Jimmy Kimmell,“I had to get off the plane to go to work so Ihad to sleep on the plane. Somebody gaveme some pills ... so great. I took a littlesleeping pill... and nothing was happeningbut something else was happening, and Isaw pretty quickly that 'A' was a little 'V' on

the pill. Not only did I not sleep on theentire flight, I was camping… There was nowalking. If I had to go to the restroom, itwas so embarrassing,” he recalled.

Believe it or not, a needle was found in acatered sandwich on an Air Canada flight.Following the incident, Air Canadaspokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick wrote inan email, “Safety is always our main con-cern so we are taking this matter very crit-ically. We immediately contacted thecaterers that provision our flights, and afull inquiry is under way.”

Earlier, a similar incident happenedwhen needles were found in sandwicheson four transatlantic Delta flights fromAmsterdam to US destinations. In thosesituations, needles were discovered in

Prickly mealFlight fiasco

Indecent dressing


Beware, drunk female pilot on board !

A female pilot was booted out from Sydney Airport after members of the cabin crewsuspected she was drunk.The decision was made after flight attendants informed theFlight Operations Manager they suspected the pilot had been drinking.

The woman reportedly recorded a positive reading for alcohol and ultimatelywithheld from operational duties on full pay. Ultimately, the jet returned to the terminaland a substitute pilot was found to take control of the flight. Later on, Qantas launcheda full investigation into the incident. “A Qantas captain was suspended from servicefor administrative reasons. The matter is being investigated and it would beinappropriate to comment further,” Qantas Airways' spokesman said.

Gimmick goes bad

It was a promotional campaign that went haywire. SouthwestAirlines' endeavour to show gratitude to Facebook friends(promotion celebrating three million Facebook fans) with ahalf-price ticket sale boomeranged, with customers uninten-tionally charged multiple times for a single flight. “It was justa technology glitch in our system that caused that,” saidSouthwest spokeswoman Ashley Dillon adding the firm wasapologetic for the hassle to customers.

The campaign named “luv2like” ended on the wrongnote. The campaign was supposed to give customers whobooked flights a 50 per cent discount on certain fares. But itall went haywire when flyers' credit and debit cards wererepeatedly charged, in some cases 20 or more times for a sin-gle flight.

Flight safari

In an amazing incident, an 11-year-old school boy flew with-out a passport, a ticket or a boarding pass. It all happenedwhen Liam Corcoran sneaked away from his mother at ashopping complex before successfully catching a flight toRome while duping airport staff. Liam told The Telegraph,“Getting on the plane was easier than doing my homework. Ididn't have anything on me and no one asked me for any-

thing. They smiled at mewhen I went through.”The Sun quoted him assaying, “I went to thetoilet and sat there but Icouldn’t get out. Then‘whoosh’, we weregoing up in the sky.”

Liam completed theflight journey of 1,500miles before returning toBritain unharmed. Hewas escorted by staffand later on reunitedwith his worried family.His mother was quoted as saying, “I can't get my head around it.How did he get that far without anyone asking him one question?I just keep thinking how easy it would be for a terrorist, it's unbe-lievable? All I read about is how airport security is the highest ithas ever been. I'm disgusted and I want answers.”

The demolition man

Next time you turn up to board a plane make sure that you don'tget struck because of a strange reason like what happened recentlyat Brisbane airport where a man with a metal hip unknowinglycreated a security nightmare at the airport, causing minorpostponements while forcing hundreds of passengers to beexamined twice.

A Qantas spokeswoman said all passengers had to gothrough security again. “It has caused minor delays, but we'vealmost rescanned everyone now,” she said. “We located himshortly after but as a result of this we had to take security safe-guards and we did clearthe passengers,” sheadded.


Strange things happen on flights. A pas-senger on a flight got so outraged that hecreated a ruckus on a petty issue: thewoman sitting beside him wouldn't turnoff her reading light. This enraged themale passenger so much that he startingscreaming and cursing.

While all the passengers were sleep-ing, the male passenger started shoutingexpletives to the lady who was using herreading light. He told the lady to turn-offthe reading light which she refused to do.Ultimately, when the plane landed, thegentleman was taken down and five sher-

iff’s deputies questioned him beforeallowing him and his family to continueon their journey home.

Strange demand

since separate sandwiches, injuringone female passenger.

Meanwhile, Christina Ulosevich,a spokeswoman for the food servicescompany, Gate Gourmet Canada, wasquoted as saying, “While we are notAir Canada’s catering provider out ofVictoria.”

? ? ? ? ?


SNIPPETS

IndiGo introduces two new flights INDIGO RECENTLY introduced two new flights in its network.The carrier started its new daily and direct flight betweenHyderabad and Dubai. Additionally, IndiGo is now operating its

second daily and direct flight between Delhi and Dubai. Theseflights will give more choice to business and leisure travellerswho are constantly on the lookout for new and affordable flyingoptions.

Speaking on the occasion, Aditya Ghosh, President, IndiGo,said that the carrier was determined to provide the best travelexperience to “all those who wish to fly to these destination. Weare looking at providing affordable fares on these new routes for6E travellers. It is our constant endeavor to provide more

flexibility of choice for our customers as IndiGo continues tooffer them on-time, hassle-free and always affordable flyingexperience.”

Deccan Shuttles starts services DECCAN SHUTTLES, a specialised wing under DeccanCharters Ltd., announced the commencement of daily charterflights in Gujarat connecting key economic centres such asAhmedabad, Surat, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar and Kandla.

The flight service aims at providing improved connectivityto these important industrial hubs in Gujarat, for the value-conscious business community. It endeavours to fuel theirbusiness by cutting their travel time, thereby enablingincreased efficiency. Secure, committed and prompt, it is a oneof its kind service that Deccan Charters brings to the state ofGujarat. Deccan Shuttles will provide this service using a 9-seater Cessna Grand Caravan Aircraft, one of the most robustaircraft used worldwide for passenger services.

The service commenced on August 20 and will initially beoperational on Ahmedabad-Surat-Bhavnagar route. TheAhmedabad-Kandla route was made operational from August27, 2012, and Ahmedabad-Jamnagar route will be addedsubsequently.

“Over the years, Deccan has made breakthroughinnovations that have redefined paradigms of the aviationindustry in India. These innovations have been fuelled by thevision of delivering value to the customers through safe andreliable services, while fostering an all-inclusive growth of thecountry. This service aims at linking the key industrial hubs inGujarat with each other, thereby fostering business growth inthe region. It will be of special significance to the businesscommunity as it will provide a much-needed boost to theirbusiness requirements through efficient and time-savingservices,” said Capt. GR Gopinath, Chairman of DeccanCharters Ltd.

Col. (Retd) Jayanth Poovaiah, Director and CEO, DeccanCharters Ltd, said, “Deccan is dedicated to explore and identifythe need for air connectivity in different pockets of India.Through these services we aim to bridge the gap inconnectivity for inaccessible tourist, industrial and otherimportant clusters. This newly-launched service creates thismuch-needed connectivity in the economically-advanced stateof Gujarat. With this service we also introduce the CessnaGrand Caravan aircraft, which are synonymous with reliabilityand efficiency; enabling timely service... values that theDeccan family cherishes.”

Jet, HDFC tie up for credit cards JETPRIVILEGE and HDFC Bank have partnered to launch‘JetPrivilege-HDFC Bank Credit Card’, an exclusive range ofcredit cards offering unique benefits and rewards in the form ofJPMiles. The co-brand credit cards will promote increase incard usage, making air travel more affordable and rewardingfor cardholders.

The JetPrivilege-HDFC Bank credit card with its World,

Delhi Duty Free gets 3 awards DELHI DUTY Free Services Pvt. Ltd (DDFS) recentlywon three awards — Retail Business Partner of the Year,Super Star Commercial Partner of the Year and RetailOutlet of the Year International — at the recently-heldGMR-IGI Airport Awards 2012. The entire awardevaluation process was carried out and validated byleading audit firm KPMG.

Receiving the awards on behalf of Delhi Duty Free,Steve O Connor, CEO, Delhi Duty Free, said, “We areextremely honoured and proud to have won three awardsin the very first GMR-IGI Awards 2012. I am glad thatthe commitment level and service standards shown byour teams have been recognised. I am very proud of theteam we have and we are confident that this is only thefirst step of many awards DDFS will compete for.”

SHOWING COMMITMENT: DDFS officials receving the awards duringthe GMR-IGI Airport Awards 2012

DOMESTIC AIRLINES

INCREASING NETWORK: Inside an IndiGo aircraft

IMPROVING CONNECTIVITY: A Deccan Shuttles chartered plane


Platinum and Titanium variants will be offered on theMasterCard network platform allowing customers access tobenefits across the world. JetPrivilege-HDFC Bank WorldCredit Card, being the premium variant, will entitle thecardholders to 6 JPMiles for every `150 spent and another10,000 JPMiles within the first 90 days. The cardholders willalso be able to aggregate all their spends into one account withsingle reward currency — JPMiles — and pool their earnings

through various programme partners to thus fast track theirability to ‘Fly Free Faster’.

Nikos Kardassis, Chief Executive Officer of Jet Airways,said, “Our objective is to deepen the relationship with ourguests. This tie-up with HDFC Bank is another unique traveloption aimed at making air travel more economical, and cost-effective for family travel. This co-branded programme bearstestimony to our customer-centric approach and will mutually

work towards strengthening customer relationships and is awin-win for JetPrivilege, HDFC Bank, and our mutual guests.”

SpiceJet honour for Olympics winners SPICEJET recently announced that it would provide free airtickets for life to Indian medal winners of the LondonOlympics.

Making the announcement, SpiceJet CEO Neil Mills said,

“The nation is proud of their unprecedented performance. It isa matter of great honour for us to be associated with thesportspersons who brought credit for India at LondonOlympics. The victory of Sushil Kumar, Yogeshwar Dutt,Vijay Kumar, MC Mary Kom, Saina Nehwal and GaganNarang at an event where sportspersons from across the globeparticipated proves their hard work and commitment to theirrespective fields.”

GoAir, Lufthansa Technik sign contract GOAIR and Lufthansa Technik signed a 10-year componentsupport contract. The contract coversmost of the spare parts required for theregular maintenance of A320 classicaircraft and will also cover the newA320neo fleet of GoAir, which isexpected to enter into service from 2016onwards. The component support will behandled via the Lufthansa TechnikGroup network.

The spare parts shall be supplied tothe airline’s bases at Mumbai and Delhi.The contract also provides GoAir accessto Lufthansa Technik’s technicaloperations WebSuite, whereby bothparties shall observe just-in-time inventory management.This will enable further efficiency gains for both parties.The maintenance and repairs of the components will bedone at Lufthansa Technik facilities. GoAir shall besupported by a dedicated customer support team in additionto Lufthansa Technik’s general 24/7 AOG Desk.

“At GoAir, it is our constant endeavour to achievesafety for our passengers and achieve operationalefficiencies at all levels. I am glad to share that GoAir hasfinalised a very important contract with Lufthansa Technik.It clearly demonstrates that GoAir is able to achieve therequired safety of passengers through world-classcomponent support at attractive prices, which are

paramount in a highly-competitive and cost-driven marketlike India,” said Giorgio De Roni, ChiefExecutive Officer of GoAir.

Flights to southern and northernIndia: GoAir introduced a new flightfrom Bengaluru to Goa from August 21,2012, and has also introduced a newflight from Lucknow to Delhi andMumbai.

The Bengaluru flight schedule hasbeen devised to offer perfectopportunities for round trip travels onthe same day, with a morning departurefrom Bengaluru and an early eveningreturn from Goa and is part of GoAir’s

strategy to strengthen its position in South India where itpresently operates from Bengaluru, Chennai, Cochin andGoa. With this new service, GoAir’s total flights toBengaluru add up to 84 per week, linking Mumbai, Delhi,Pune and Goa.

Speaking on the occasion, Giorgio De Roni, CEO,GoAir, said that the new flights between Bengaluru andGoa and Lucknow and Delhi would “strengthen ourposition in Bengaluru and Lucknow and represent a furtherstep in our long-term strategy to increase our presence inSouth and North India. Within this financial year, GoAirwill receive an additional brand new aircraft and moreflights are planned to/from Bengaluru.”

GoAir CEO Giorgio De Roni

PROVIDING ENCOURAGEMENT: SpiceJet will be providing free air tickets forlife to Indian medal winners of the Olympics

STRATEGIC TIE-UP: The HDFC and Jet teams at the launch of JetPrivilege-HDFC Bank Credit Card

SNIPPETS


Turkish Airlines bags Skytrax awardAIR TRAVELL-ERS once againvoted Turkish Airli-nes as the BestAirline in Europe, the second year running at the 2012 SkytraxWorld Airline Awards. Turkish Airlines was also named as thewinner of the categories, “Best Airline in Southern Europe” and“Best Premium Economy Class Airline Seat” for its comfort classseats by Skytrax.

The survey, conducted by global aviation researchorganisation SKYTRAX, polled over 18 million business andleisure air travellers from 100 countries, with the winners of thesepassenger’s choice awards announced at the recently-heldFarnborough Airshow, UK, and the awards were handed over toTurkish Airlines’ General Manager Temel Kotil by the CEO ofSkytrax, Edward Plaisted.

“Turkish Airlines continues to consolidate its position as oneof the world’s leading airlines and the awards they have receivedtoday for Best Airline in Europe and the Best Airline in SouthernEurope demonstrate their continued popularity amongstpassengers. Turkish Airlines Premium Economy cabin product hasproved increasingly popular and the award Turkish Airlinescollected for the Best Premium Economy Class Airline Seat is aclear reflection of the success of this high-quality product,” saidPlaisted.

AirAsia launches flights to Lombok INCREASING ITS connectivity with its 15th Indonesiandestination from Kuala Lumpur, AirAsia has recently launchedthrice weekly direct flights to Lombok. Jasmine Lee, AirAsiaBerhad Commercial Director, said, “Lombok is a hidden gem.

Blessed with a plethora of spectacular scenery, Lombok satisfiesdiverse holiday preferences. Outdoor lovers may embark onadventurous trips to explore the mighty Mount Rinjani orTropical Forest and Animal Reserve. Honeymooners willdefinitely find the untouched sandy beaches at Senggigi and thesurrounding Gili Island as romantic retreats. For those who seekescapism, Lombok is a perfect spot for snorkeling and diving,with a dreamlike and picture-perfect underwater world.”Announces great year-end deals: AirAsia X is offering specialyear-end holiday fares to its destinations across Australia, China,Taiwan, Nepal, Japan and Korea. The airlines will be takingpassengers from Kuala Lumpur to Japan (Osaka, Tokyo) startingfrom as low as $96, China (Beijing, Hangzhou, Chengdu) fromas low as $112, Australia (Perth, Melbourne, Gold Coast,Sydney) from as low as $118, Taiwan (Taipei) from as low as$125, Nepal (Kathmandu) from as low as $128 and Korea(Seoul) from as low as $141.Increases frequency to Nepal: AirAsia X will be increasing itsflight frequency to Kathmandu from Kuala Lumpur, from itscurrent two flights weekly to three flights weekly effectiveSeptember 15, 2012. The move comes in response toencouraging demand from our guests in South East Asia andbeyond. AirAsia X in conjunction with the added frequency isoffering extremely competitive promotional fares from KualaLumpur to Kathmandu, Nepal for travel between September 4,2012 and May 22, 2013.

Cathay announces 2012 interim results CITING PERSISTENTLY high price of jet fuel, passengeryields coming under pressure and weak air cargo demand —factors common to the aviation industry as a whole — theCathay Pacific Group reported an attributable loss of $120.5

INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES

Virgin touches JFK with DelhiVIRGIN ATLANTIC recently announced the launch of its newservice, connecting flights from Delhi to New York's John FKennedy airport via London Heathrow. The airline's soaringsuccess on the Delhi-Newark route was a key factor inlaunching this new London-New York service (Virgin's 6thdaily out of London). The new service to JFK willcommence from October 28 andwill complement the airline'sexisting same day connection fromDelhi to Newark via LondonHeathrow. The new service isbeing launched to build upon theairline's strong performance toNewark from Delhi and tocapitalise on the growing passengernumbers to New York and theUSA. Stephen King, General Manager,India, Virgin Atlantic Airways said, “India is definitely one ofour key markets and along with launching Mumbai later thisyear we are really looking forward to connecting morepassengers to JFK and Newark out of Delhi. The schedule hasbeen designed to enable passengers from India's capital toconnect quickly to New York. Our increasing share to Newarkshows that passengers prefer breaking the journey in half,

stretching their legs and indulging in some duty-free shopping.We're looking forward to making this new service to JFK asuccess.”All set to connect Mumbai to London and USA: VirginAtlantic is starting flights to London from Mumbai, fromOctober 29, 2012. The daily flight will serve the UK and open

up fabulous connections from LondonHeathrow Airport to New York, Boston,Washington and Miami among otherUSA destinations. A brand new A330 aircraft offering thebest in the airline's new product andservice will be deployed on the routewhich is also home to the innovativeUpper Class Dream suite. The redefinedbusiness class cabin features new superlounge seats, the longest bar andbusiness class bed in the sky, andrevolutionary touch screen JAMentertainment system fitted in every

cabin. Sir Richard Branson, President, Virgin Atlantic Airwayssaid, “Virgin Atlantic is proud to be flying to Mumbai again,linking this wonderful city to our key destinations of London,New York, Boston, Washington and Miami. India'sphenomenal growth continues to drive travel to UK and USAand we know our passengers are going to love the connectionsthe new flight offers.”

STRONGER CONNECTIONS : A Virgin Atlantic aircraft

million for the first six months of 2012. Profits from associated companies, including Air China,

also showed a marked decline. In response to these challenges,the Cathay Pacific Group introduced measures designed toprotect its business, including schedule changes and capacityreductions, the withdrawal from service of older, less fuel-efficient aircraft, a recruitment freeze and the introduction ofvoluntary unpaid leave for cabin crew.

However, the group has kept its network intact and notallowed cost reductions to compromise the brand or servicequality. It also continued with major investments — newaircraft, new products and its own HK$5.9 billion cargoterminal at Hong Kong International Airport — that willbenefit the business in the long term.

Speaking on the latest announcement, Tom Wright,General Manager, South Asia, Africa and Middle East, said,“India continues to remain an important market for us as wesee a huge potential here and our flights have had good loadfactors. We are expanding our services in India with increasein flights from Chennai from four weekly flights to daily. Wewill also launch Dragonair services in Kolkata offering theonly direct flight services to Hong Kong this November. TheCathay Pacific cargo business is also doing well and we haverecently started our cargo services in Hyderabad. We areoptimistic about our growth in India.”

BA doubles Dublin-London frequency THIS WINTER, British Airways will double the number offlights it operates between Dublin and London Heathrow.Following the acquisition of British Midland International byInternational Airlines Group (IAG), British Airways nowoperates this important air link after taking over the route atthe end of June. The new schedule, effective from October 28,will lead to the number of daily services increasing from fourto eight return flights, enabling the airlines to offer thousandsmore seats a week between both cities. The route will beoperated by a 150-seater A319 aircraft offering the choice ofboth Club Europe and Club Traveller cabins and passengerscan enjoy a full onboard experience with complimentary foodand drinks.

Etihad to buy more of Virgin AustraliaETIHAD AIRWAYS has welcomed the decision by theAustralian Government to allow the airline to increase itsequity stake in Virgin Australia Holdings to a maximum of 10per cent. Etihad Airways currently has a 4.99 per cent stake inVirgin Australia, acquired earlier this year, and had applied tothe Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) to raise the level

of its investment. The purchase was made following thedevelopment of a highly successful multi-tiered partnershipbetween the two airlines that includes code-sharing on flights,joint marketing initiatives and reciprocal earn-and-burn ontheir respective frequent flier programmes.

Etihad Airways and Virgin Australia together currentlyoperate 24 flights per week between Australia and Abu Dhabioffering Australian travellers and visitors to Australia greaterchoice and access to a combined network of more than 285global destinations.

Lufthansa’s Boeing 747-8 gets royal salute LUFTHANSA’S BOEING 747-8 Intercontinental recentlytouched down for the first time in the country, marking a newmilestone in Indian aviation. It was received with a grandwater canon at Terminal 3 of New Delhi’s Indira GandhiInternational Airport. Lufthansa is the global launch customerfor the latest avatar of the legendary family of Jumbo Jets andDelhi is the second destination worldwide to receive theB747-8.

Passengers on the inaugural flight from Frankfurtwitnessed how state-of-the-art aircraft technologies maximisein-flight comfort, by reducing cabin noise by 30 per cent for

example. They also experienced Lufthansa’s latest in-flightproducts, such as a sophisticated new Business Class seatfeaturing a 6.5-foot-long full-flat bed with vastly improvedsleeping comfort and much greater privacy.

Travellers on the main deck of the nose section, weretreated in “the quietest First Class in the world”. EconomyClass passengers too enjoyed the new seats with large increasein individual space with 5-7 cms more legroom and 52centimetres wide seats.

00CRUISING HEIGHTS September 2012 71

STYLE REDEFINED: The sophisticated new Business Class in Lufthansa’sBoeing 747-8

Emirates strengthens commercial team Strengthening its commercial operationsteam, Emirates airline announcedmanagement changes to its commercialoperations department, helping the airlinemeet its demanding growth trajectory. Theairline has promoted Essa Sulaiman Ahmad,as Vice President, India and Nepal and Orhan

Abbas as Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations - TheAmericas. In addition to this Ahmed Khoory, has been appointedas the Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations, West Asiaand Indian Ocean.

New GM for Air France-KLM Air France-KLM appointed YeshwantPawar as its new General Manager-SouthAsia. Taking charge of the Air France-KLM office on September 1, 2012,Yeshwant will be responsible foraccelerating Air France-KLM growth inSouth Asia, strengthening teams and

enhancing relationships with partners and alliances in theregion.

Prior to taking up this new designation, he was theGeneral Manager, Eastern Africa for Air France KLM.

APPOINTMENTS

Essa Sulaiman Yeshwant Pawar

SNIPPETS


India ushers first sea-facing hotelTHE FIRST sea-facing hotel of Chennai region that wouldprovide a magnificent view of the Bay of Bengal - The Leela

Palace Chennai - is slated to be launched by The Leela Palaces,Hotels and Resorts. The 11-floor, 326-room property, spanningsix verdant acres, is in close proximity to the capital's businessdistrict, and is strategically located on the prime real-estate siteof the Adyar Seaface.

Designed by the internationally acclaimed architectsSmallwood, Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart & Associates, Inc, USA,it seamlessly combines the architectural opulence of theChettinad dynasty with the largest guest rooms in the city. State-of-the-art facilities, finest dining concepts and a dazzlingcollection of renowned contemporary art and artisan craft makesthe hotel one of the most luxurious landmarks in South India.The Palace offers lavishly-appointed suites, exclusive servicesfor corporate high-flyers, palatial spaces for meetings,conferences, and private celebrations, fine dining from aroundthe globe, an award-wining spa, an ultra-modern fitness retreatand a spectacular 25-metre swimming pool.

Rajiv Kaul, President of The Leela Palaces, Hotels, andResorts said, “The Leela Palace Chennai symbolises the spirit ofChennai which has rapidly evolved into a global business andtechnology hub, while deeply rooted in traditional culture, music

and heritage of South India. This Palace property will raise thebar of luxury hospitality in the region and provide a world-classdestination for discerning travellers as well as city residents.”

Largest IBIS hotel opensIN ORDER to tap business travellers of the fastest-growingcorporate hub after Mumbai, IBIS - Accor Group’s economy hotelbrand announced the formal launch of the largest hotel in Turbhe,Navi Mumbai. With 196 rooms, IBIS is expanding its footprint toattract an ever-increasing corporate fraternity.

IBIS Navi Mumbai is set up at a capital investment of between`100 crore and 150 crore, located on the Thane-Belapur Road at amajor junction just 10 minutes from business areas of Vashi,Mahape and Belapur. It aims to break even within next 2 years with70 per cent occupancy during peak season that is March-June andSeptember-December. Key features of an IBIS experience includeanytime check-in by guests, a three-shift buffet breakfast startingfrom 4 am to 7 am, 7 am to 10 am and 10 am to 12 pm. A uniqueconcept introduced for the first time is 15-minute non-satisfactionguarantee wherein if a guest faces a service issue and it is notaddressed within the stipulated 15 minutes, the stay iscomplementary for the guest.

Speaking on the occasion, Maverik Mukerji, General Manager,IBIS (Navi Mumbai), stated, “At IBIS, we believe in delivering anexperience of a luxury hotel services at an affordable price. Owingto the robust commercial activity in Navi Mumbai there isconsiderable demand as business travellers have become cost andquality conscious.”

Jharkhand gets boost for tourist circuitSUBODH KANT SAHAY, Minister for Tourism, Governmentof India, announced that the Government of India had granted`50 crore for the development of a tourist circuit coveringimportant spots in East Singhbhum, Saraikela-Kharsawan andRanchi districts of Jharkhand during a recently-held conferenceon ‘Jharkhand: A rediscovered tourist paradise’, in Ranchi.

“Initially, the ministry decided to give around `39 crore, butkeeping in mind the tourism potential of the state, we decided toincrease the allocation to around `50 crore,” said Sahay.“Jharkhand has everything to make it a popular touristdestination, but the state government has never tried to developit. The state has also failed to realise that tourism helps ingenerating employment,” he added.

Exclusive shop at Delhi airportDELHI BAZAAR, an exclusive Indian store concept byCraft House of The Metropolitan Hotel and Spa, openedat the Terminal 3 of Indira Gandhi International Airport.Speaking on the occasion, Monisha Gupta, Director,Craft House said, “Delhi Bazaar will be a holisticshopping experience for the travellers flying out of thecity. We aim to promote India as a concept and will offerproducts ranging from handicrafts, tea, spices, décoraccessories to coffee table books, aroma, spa and spiritualproducts, ethnic wear etc. A smaller version of DelhiBazaar will also open at the Domestic Departure of T3 aswell.” A shopper’s delight, it features the famous Indianhand-woven pashmina in an array of weaves, colours andprints, designer jewellery in precious gems, a variety insilk accessories, bags and crafts.

TRAVEL & TOURISM

ONE MORE FEATHER IN THE CAP: Capt C P Krishnan Nair, Chairman, TheLeela Palaces Hotels and Resorts, lighting the lamp during the pooja at the inau-gural of the Leela Palace, Chennai

EXCLUSIVE INDIAN STORE: A view of the Craft Bazaar at New Delhi Airport’sTerminal 3

Madhya Pradesh is the heartof India. The state's naturalbeauty, combined with innu-

merable monuments, exquisitely-carved temples, stupas, forts andpalaces, make it a must visit. In addi-tion, there are amazing nationalparks. Furthe-rmore, the MP StateTourism Development Corporationoffers a wide choice of accommoda-tion. So come to MP and enjoy hospi-tality never-experienced before.

Khajuraho — Eternal Images ofLoveThe temples of Khajuraho are a testi-mony to the unique craftsmanship ofthe times and the vision of theChandela Rajputs, who had thembuilt between 950 and1050AD. Ofthe 85 original temples, 22 have sur-vived till today. Lost among theforests for centuries, these templeswere discovered by a British engi-neer, TS Burt in 1838. These groupsof temples are designated byUNESCO as a world heritage siteand are divided into three geographi-cal groups.

The Western Group — Locatedon the main Bamitha-Rajnagar Road,these temples are the most visited.Among them are the KandariyaMahadev that soars 31 m high andhas the most elegantly ornamentedbasement with intricately carved pro-cessional friezes; Chaunsath Yogini,the only granite temple and the earli-est surviving shrine of the group,

dedicated to Kali. Of its 64 peripheralshrines, only 35 survive today;Chitragupta Temple — Facing east-wards, the temple is dedicated to theSun God. The imposing diety imagein the inner sanctum is driving ahorse-drawn chariot. The depictionsreflect the lavish lifestyle of theChandela courts; VishwanathTemple — The architectural style ofthis Shiva temple indicates that it wasbuilt just before the Kandariya.Particularly noteworthy are its twosura sundaris. It is a panchayatantemple but now only two subsidiaryshrines survive; Lakshmana Templeis a Vaishnav temple and has the fiveprincipal elements of the ArdhMandapa, Mandapa, Maha Mandapa,Vestibule and Sanctum. The lintelover the entrance of the templeshows the trinity; Jagadambi Templededicated to Goddess Kali is of fourpart design in plan. The sanctum hasa four armed Vishnu; MatangeswaraTemple — Still a place of worship,the Shiva temple has an eight-foot-high lingam. This temple is the venueof a large fair on the day ofMahashivratri.

Eastern Group — Here, closeto the village of Khajuraho,Brahminical and Jain temples existside by side. The Hindu temples aresituated near Ninora Tal or KhajurahoSagar.Brahma Temple — Wrongly called aBrahma temple as the four-facedlinga placed in the sanctum was mis-

taken for the four-faced idol ofBrahma. Though the linga would indi-cate that this is a Shiva temple, theprominent figure carved on the lintelof the sanctum doorway indicatesthat it was a Vishnu temple; TheVamana temple is dedicated to theVamana incarnation of Vishnu. Itswalls are richly-carved; Javari — Itstands on a high plinth and has adelicate soaring shikhara. The threebands of sculpture on its outer wallsare rich in carvings and decoration.Jain shrines are situated furthersouth accessible by a metalled road.Ghantai Temple — Ghantai is thelocal name for these ruins because ofthe carvings of bells on its slim pil-lars. All that stands now is theremains of the entrance porch and itsmaha mandap or assembly hall;Parsvanath Temple — About 400 msoutheast of Ghantai temple thisstands in a walled enclosure with theother Adinath temple. Made ofhoney-coloured sand stone, itenshrines a black marble image ofthe first Tirthankar; Adinath Templeis smaller than Parsvanath and inmany ways resembles the Yamana.Only the sanctum and vestibule havesurvived. The sculpture on the threebands include charming sura sun-daris whereas the principal threeniches of the outer facade haveimages of yakshis.

Southern Group: It comprisesjust two conserved temples, DuladeoTemple and Chaturbhuj Temple,

that are among the last temples to bebuilt.Sound and Light Show: This fasci-nating Son-etLumiere spectacleevokes the life and times of the greatChandela Kings and traces the storyof the unique temples from the 10thcentury to the present day. Mountedin the complex of the Western Groupof temples, the 50-minute show runsin Hindi and English every evening.State Museum of Tribal and FolkArts: A fine collection of master-pieces of tribal and folk arts and arti-facts from all over MP is on display atthe Chandela Cultural Complex. TheMuseum opens everyday from 10 pmto 5 pm, except Mondays andgazetted holidays.


Khajuraho: Symphony in stone FOCU

S FE

ATUR

EHOW TO REACH

BY AIR: Regular services linkKhajuraho with Delhi and Varanasi

BY RAIL: Khajuraho has its ownrailway station linking it to Delhi,Jhansi (l72 km), Harpalpur (94 km)and Mahoba (64 km), Satna (117km) on the Mumbai-Allahabad lineof the Central Railway, is a conven-ient rail link for those coming fromMumbai, Kolkata and Varanasi.

BY ROAD: Khajuraho is connectedby regular buses with Satna,Harpalpur, Jhansi and Mahoba.Best Season: July to March

YOUR HOST: Madhya PradeshTourism's Hotel Jhankar, Hotel Payaland Tourist Village.


BACK PAGE

If Rabia Futehally could fly in 2012, she would have made afashion statement. Her’s would have been a memorable pho-tograph:a striking lady, draped in a gorgeous silk saree step-ping into a cockpit. For as long as her friends from the pilot

community — and she has many, but, mind you, all are wonder-ful ladies like her — can remember, Futehally has flown aroundthe country in her ‘trademark’ sari and thereby created arecord of sorts: the only Indian woman pilot to fly in asari.

“Flying while dressed in a saree was very natu-ral. We always wore a saree — be it work, moun-tain climbing, trekking or flying,” says the ladywho was honoured as a 2012 inductee into theInternational Forest of Friendship (IFF), in Atchi-son, Kansas during ceremonies in June. With thisand many other achievements to her credit, the ladystill feels that there is no need for congratulations asshe was merely pursuing her passion. “Flying commer-cial was not my ambition. I flew just for the ecstacy of fly-ing.”

She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the IndianWomen Pilots’ Association (IWPA), is the Secretary of the IndiaSection of the 99s, and also a member of the Managing Commit-tee of the Bombay Flying Club (BFC).

In 1962, when her first daughter was nine months old, herfather, husband, and three brothers went off and enrolled at theBFC. They were so struck by the magic of flying that no othersubject was spoken of in the house. When she asked them in exas-peration if she could also fly, her father, who had by that time pro-

WORTHY ACHIEVER: Futehally receiving

The Women Achievers in Aviation Awardby Air India on December 16, 2011,

from Chitra Sarkar, the then

Executve Director, Air India, Americas

cured his Private Pilot Licence (PPL), told her to get into the car,drove to the Flying Club — and her flying lesson started withinminutes! She was instantly addicted, from the very first unbeliev-able experience the eventual ultimate feeling of oneness with theaicraft that soon became an extension of the self.

Her progress with exams and licenses was quick. She gotIndia’s PPL No. 13; being perhaps the first Indian woman

to do so. “Even my instructors treated me just likeanother pilot and there was no discrimination as a

woman,” says the pilot.Flying was fun; it could also be used for work,

as she and her husband, together flew all overIndia for work.

On a lucky day at the BFC, she met IsabelleMcRae, 99 Member of the El Cajon Valley Chapter

in California, touring India. Isabelle was instrumentalin getting her and Chanda Budhabhatti, also flying at

the BFC, to become guest members of her chapter in theUSA. This inspired Chanda, with her help, to collect all the

girls flying in India in 1965; the group ultimately became The Indi-an Women Pilots’ Association in 1969, which today has 150 Mem-bers. In 1976, when The Charter of India Section of the 99s wasgranted to a group of women pilots in Bombay by the President ofthe 99s Lois Feigenbaum, Futehally became the first Vice Governor.She has been a 99 ever since 1965.

Her efforts have resulted almost directly in the induction of womenpilots in India’s Airlines, and into the armed forces of India in 1986,including the Air Force, the Navy and The Coast Guard. n

—Nidhi Sharma

74

HIGH FLIERS: RabiaFutehally with the

then Prime MinisterRajiv Gandhi and

other eminentfliers

“FLYING IN A SAREE WAS VERY NATURAL”

THE DARING VENTURERS:

Rabia Futehally (extreme

right), along with Chanda S

Budhabatti, Chairperson, IWPA

(centre), Mohini Shroff,

Trustee, IWPA (extreme left)

IN CONTROL:Rabia Futehally,pilot in com-mand, attired ina saree 4

I flewsimply for the

ecstacy offlying, not

commercialreasons

4

4

4

Documents

Cruisingheights