Air India is trying to find a unique selling point to stay relevant to the travellers it serves, and in-flight internet might just be it from their perspective. After the new found acceptance from Star Alliance, they might just be trying to build a customer-focussed organisation. According to The Times of India, the airline is now investigating the proposition to buy and install wifi internet services on their planes. As per the report, the early steps have been taken to look at vendors, and while this may not indicate that it will have wifi anytime in the next few months or years, it is a start. AI chairman Rohit Nandan has set up a panel of top AI officials to…
India approves A380s to fly into the country
Beginning of this month, I’d written a short post peeping into what I expected to see in the year ahead with respect to Indian aviation. I am happy to see that 2 bullet points out of that list can already be struck off. First, Mumbai’s Terminal 2 has already been inaugurated and airlines will migrate to International operations here in a matter of weeks. Now, this afternoon (India Time), India’s aviation ministry has made a much expected announcement, which allows for the superjumbo Airbus A380 planes to fly to India. Till last year, India had prohibited the A380 from flying into India because of the lack of readiness to accommodate this double decker plane, and in part to protect national…
Last Chance: Air India 30 days+ sale ends today
Last week, all the domestic airlines of India had brought out their fare sales, which was first started by Spicejet, and then followed by Indigo, Go Air, Air India and Jet Airways (Jet Konnect) in that order. While the other airlines have tempered it down and finished off with their sales over the weekend, reader Sriram Hariharan alerted me via Twitter that the Air India fare sale has been extended till the end of today. A notice on the Air India website reads, Air India announces the extension of the Jaldi Jaldi Sale offer. Discounted Fares on domestic sectors across the network Period of Sale : Upto 27th Jan 2014 Period of travel : 21st Feb till 15th April 14…
Citibank PremierMiles cashback of INR 1000 for new cards
Citibank is running a very lucrative promotion for new signups for the PremierMiles credit card. Like you know, Citibank offers 10 PremierMiles/100 INR for airline bookings via airline offices & websites (including premiermiles.co.in). For other transactions, it is 4 PremierMiles/100 INR. You also get 10,000 PremierMiles for your first transaction of Rs. 1000 or more within 60 days of acquiring the card. PremierMiles can be transferred 1:1 to various frequent flyer programs including Air India, Cathay Pacific, Etihad and Delta. PremierMiles don’t expire, so you can transfer them to any program when you need them. You can read my review, albeit a bit dated, here. The promotion for Rs. 1000 Cashback for new cards, is valid till March 15, 2014…
Republic Day Deals: Cathay Pacific, Emirates & Air France/KLM offering special fares
26th January is a great day for airlines to roll out offers for Indians travelling around the world, and this year is no different. I tried summarising a few offers for all of you in this post: Emirates is offering 10% to select destinations across the world from India for booking it up by 26 January 2014 and travel upto 10th April 2014. Destinations include Sao Paulo, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Nice, Prague, Seychelles & Cape Town. Etihad is offering business class deals to Africa, Europe & the UAE, and is valid for booking till 28th January 2014, and travel till June 30, 2014. Virgin Atlantic is offering special fares to London and onwards to the USA from Mumbai and Delhi which…
Air India expected to join Star Alliance by Summer 2014
This has been the subject of discussion since 2007: the inclusion of Air India in Star Alliance. Like I discussed in December 2013, Air India had finally got its second invitation to be included in the Star Alliance, with the first one having been put on hold in July 2011. While it seems far fetched that Air India will move in such a fast speed to be included in the Star Alliance, the Alliance CEO Mark F Schwab, who visited Air India last week in Mumbai, seems to be confident that the airline would be included in the alliance as per Summer 2014. Here is a quote from the Aviation Week: Without giving a specific date, one can say that…
Register for Uber to get 200% startup credit extended till 31 January 2014
Uber has been offering a generous double referral for new referrals for new signups for most of January 2014, and they extended this promotion till January 31, 2014. If you haven’t tried out their services yet, and you live in one of the 26 cities they operate in right now, maybe this is a good time to at least sign up, because you would get yourself double the referral amounts in your Uber account, from what is usually offered. For instance, a new account in the USA will be credited with $20, in UAE with AED80, in India with INR 600, in Hong Kong with HKD 140 and so on, which is double from the usual amounts. And you don’t…
Jet Airways offering special fares and double miles on Mumbai-Paris-Mumbai
Last week, I wrote about the new long-haul flight from Jet Airways, which will be Mumbai – Paris – Mumbai, a daytime departure from India to get into Paris, and an overnight flight from Paris to Mumbai. Jet Airways has announced special fares for this route for any dates, which will be available for purchase upto February 10 28, 2014. So if you like Paris in November, or in January, or in the summers, you can lock in your seats at INR 45,000 all inclusive for economy and INR 1,53,000 for business class already. There is also more, the airline is offering double base miles for those who fly before July 13, 2014, which means you can net about 19000…
India Fare Sale Update: Air India, Jet Airways, Go Air, Indigo & SpiceJet offering 50% off fares
A few days back, SpiceJet started out the first 50% off sale of the year. Next, there was Indigo, GoAir and then Air India. Everyone, including me, was waiting for Jet Airways to get into the game as well. And they did, last evening. Jet Airways is offering 50% off tickets till end of 24 January 2014 on JetKonnect, which is their low cost subsidiary at www.jetkonnect.com. You won’t find these fares anywhere else, including JetAirways.com. The beauty of JetKonnect is, it sells full-service flights on JetAirways as a codeshare flight as well, but at 50% off to the full fare available on JetAirways.com. Have a look at the instance below, where you see the Jet Airways symbol along with…
Indian Fare Sale update: Air India joins in the 50% off sale
Yesterday I wrote extensively about how it was a good opportunity for you all to pick up very cheap flights 30 days out (at 50% off), on SpiceJet, Indigo and GoAir. All these fares are available on Online Travel Agents such as Yatra.com, MakeMyTrip.com and GoIbibo.com as well. There was also speculation that Air India would join into this sale, however, nothing had been heard about it so far. Last night I heard the Air India tickets were on sale from midnight of 22 Jan 2014 onwards, and available on Air India’s website, and also the travel websites mentioned above. You can also call your neighbourhood travel agent for these fares. Have a look here at Mumbai Delhi fares from…
Delta offering $830 fares from Boston to Mumbai R.T.
I usually do not put the individual route fare sales on this blog, but this one was too good to pass up, especially since this blog tries to focus on India-related aviation deals as well. Delta has a Boston-Amsterdam-Mumbai roundtrip fare, and also a Boston-Paris-Mumbai roundtrip fare which is going in the $830-$870 range, which is way less than the usual fare on this route which goes at $1100 upwards. Here is a screenshot of fares from the Matrix website. Various dates are available for various number of nights. As per The Flight Deal website, which first posted the deal, says the deal is valid for travel from March 10th – May…
