Over a year back, I wrote about Air Asia’s launch in India, along with the Tata group. Things have moved a lot since then, and Air Asia India went through a series of regulatory clearances over the past ten months or so. There were a lot of roadblocks along the way, in the sense that the existing airlines did not want to have a new player amongst them, so they banded under Federation of Indian Airlines to try and stop access to India for this 3-way joint venture. A few weeks ago, they received their first plane, VT-ATF from Airbus, and on May 1 and 2, they conducted their proving flights, where the staff and the regulatory officials flew as…
About Ajay
Great Summer Fares 2: Air India offering INR 35K+ fares to Italy
Yesterday, I wrote about the 30K fares to Paris on Jet Airways, which I think is a very good fare to inspire you to visit the City of Lights. There is also British Airways, which is doling out vouchers for you to apply for your visa and giving you a discount accordingly. I wrote a few days back about Air India’s launching flights from Delhi to Milan and Rome. This will be a Boeing 787 flight, which will stop at both the cities, and do a circular route back home. While Air India has not started selling this flight on their own website, they seem to be offering great fares from anywhere in India to Milan/Rome, at a flat price…
Great Summer Fares: INR 30K Jet Airways to Paris/book before May 9
There are some pretty good deals out there in case you all are looking to travel to Europe later this year and have still not planned out your vacations. First destination, Paris. I’ve written about the Jet Airways flight between Mumbai and Paris, which is starting operations from May 14, 2014. Initially, this flight is planned for 4 days a week on an Airbus 330-200, and as of end June the flight will become a daily flight. Now, initially Jet Airways was offering this flight at INR 45K for economy tickets. Now, they are offering special fares which you can book for INR 30K all inclusive for travel between Mumbai/Paris and back in economy on www.jetairways.com or even via GoIbibo,…
SpiceJet offers an On-Time Guarantee from today
SpiceJet, one of India’s low cost carriers, has been working pretty hard under the hood to go back up in the aviation game. When I last flew them, which was at least 15 months back, my flights were so horribly delayed and so tardily handled that I stopped flying them. However, since earlier this year, I have been hearing good things about various aspects of flying on SpiceJet. There has been a good On Time Performance posted for a few months in a row, and they have some good meals to buy inside the plane, and of course, all the sales they keep doing to bring in more passengers over to their planes. One of the new initiatives in this…
Etihad’s new First/Business products on A380 & 787s
Etihad has been silent for the longest time on a cabin refresh, and yesterday, they shared details of what could be the most luxurious products in the air. Stay with me, they are creating, Apartments and full Residences in the air. Also Studios. The Suites class product is a few year old, and Etihad has a fully enclosed suites as well on its aircraft, along with Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Jet Airways amongst others. So, they took this opportunity to have new aircraft to do something new altogether. Since 2008, Etihad worked with 3 different companies, no less, to design the new experience and product for their upcoming planes. The Residence, which will be single or double occupancy, is targeted…
Flight Review: 9W 572 Mumbai to Kuwait, Jet Airways, Economy
Last month, I was on my way to a meeting to Kuwait, and I did my standard drill. I usually arrive there on one of the two evening flights with Jet Airways, stay the night at a hotel, do the meeting, and wait for the flight back which only happens the next evening. Perhaps I need to optimize these a bit, but anyhow, this time I was back on my old warhorse, Jet Airways, which was going to take me from Mumbai to Kuwait International Airport on the early departure flight. For the 17:55 flight, I arrived at the new Mumbai Terminal 2 at about 15:00, which was an early arrival by all standards. I was joined by a colleague,…
Citi offering 2x PremierMiles on International Spends
You know it only too well. I love PremierMiles. There are at lease 2-3 times promotional spending periods during a year, and even otherwise I earn 10 miles per INR 100 on airline spends, and 4 miles per INR 100 spend on every other spend. The last time they offered double miles, I went home with another 50K extra miles since I figured in their top 5000 spenders. Each mile converts into one airline mile with 9 FFPs, or also converts with 3 hotel partners. I’d really like them to add Starwood and Hyatt to the list of hotel partners, but overall, it is a lovely card from my perspective. Now, they are back with an International spends promotion. Something…
Air India looks all set for Star Alliance this summer
Hot on the trails of SriLankan Airlines joining oneworld, Air India seems to be working on all frontiers to get set to join Star Alliance. While there have been a lot of news reports in the past couple of days, this interview with the CEO of Star Alliance, Mark Schwab seems to nail the date down to June or July 2014 after an endorsement from the CEO’s of other Star Alliance members as of 23 June 2014. Our CEOs get together in London on the occasion of the new Star Alliance terminal at London Heathrow on 23 June where we expect an endorsement vote to be taken up on Air India joining Star. And we are just beginning to coordinate…
Excellent savings on British Airways for UK/Europe/North America fares
I have to admit, British Airways is becoming one of my flights of choice this year, as I reattempt my growth back to American Airlines Executive Platinum and route some of my Europe travel via London which adds flexibility into my schedule (2 flights a day to Mumbai, as compared to one a day with Jet Airways at Brussels which is my evergreen option). They have been running an excellent promotion for a while, which was highlighted to me sometime back but I failed to write about because I thought it was useless. I changed my mind last night. British Airways has had a tie-up with Groupon in India to sell promotional vouchers, where they are offering the following deals…
Selective Fare Sales on Jet Airways and SpiceJet today
Jet Airways has launched a fare sale today, valid for sale between 1 and 4 May 2014, and is valid on the following routes for purchase only via www.jetairways.com or their mobile app. It is an interesting motley of routes, including some popular routes including Mumbai – Goa. Do remember, the discounts are on 30, 60 and 90 day out flights, so don’t expect to find a discount on +1 day flights. You can travel on these special fares till September 25, 2014. Also, SpiceJet has a fare sale going on till May 2, 2014 as well. This time around, the sale is offering fares between INR 1899 and INR 1999 on many routes from the following cities: Ahmedabad, Belgaum,…
SriLankan is inducted into oneworld
It’s official. After a marred effort to have Kingfisher Airlines as a part of the oneworld alliance in 2012, the alliance finally got its first member from the Indian subcontinent today in Sri Lankan airlines. Here is a picture of the A330 in oneworld livery unveiled today, at the Hambantota Airport in Sri Lanka: [Picture courtesy: Mavis Toh on Twitter] The first scheduled flight for SriLankan’s as part of oneworld will be UL318 departing from Colombo to the Kuala Lumpur hub Malaysia Airlines at 7.45 am on May 1, 2014. SriLankan’s website states that members of oneworld airlines’ loyalty programmes will receive double the normal mileage awards/points when flying on SriLankan during the “welcome”period of May 15 to June 30,…
