While I’ve been waiting for Uber to come to my city of Mumbai, Uber has gone ahead and launched in Secret Uber mode (Beta) in Chennai last evening. This is the fourth city they’ve launched in India, which means Mumbai does not get the privilege of Uber in January 2014. The other cities are Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad. Here is how my first experience with them went in Delhi. Now, Uber in Chennai can be ordered via the smartphone app for iOS and Android phones, and all you need is a credit card number fed into your phone app to be able to bill the rides to, since Uber works cashless and you don’t have to pay when you release…
Lufthansa considering bringing the A380 to India this year
While the initial reaction from most carriers about the new rules for the A380 in India was muted, airlines seem to be now coming out of the hiding to make a commitment to the Indian market, or so it seems. While Singapore Airlines seems to have a low-hanging fruit because of their recently concluded bilateral negotiations with India, it now seems that Lufthansa has also made up their mind to introduce the A380 in India within the year. Christopher Franz, the CEO of Lufthansa, made this statement earlier this week to Reuters: We are interested to use the A380 also for the major Indian markets The press also notes that Lufthansa planned to use the jet in India but the…
Jet Airways adding flights to Abu Dhabi from Bangalore & Hyderabad, offers 10% discount
Jet Airways is on an expansion spree to Abu Dhabi. After it’s Chennai – Abu Dhabi launch, and is adding two more flights to Abu Dhabi from Hyderabad and Bangalore, from March 1, 2014. These flights will be on 737 aircraft, and the schedule is as below. To kick off these sectors, Jet Airways is offering a 10% off on economy as well as business class tickets on these routes, only via its website www.jetairways.com. Unfortunately, this discount is not stackable with the 5% base fare discount offered by Jet Airways on its co-branded credit cards. Related Post: Jet operationalizes the Abu Dhabi scissor hub, to reintroduce JFK Join over 2600 people who check-in daily to find out about the…
Air India planning to offer inflight internet
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…
