Recap: The wisdom behind Jet Airways’ 3 airline brands lies in the 2009 period when air travel went down with the downturn. Jet Airways (9W) was always a full-service carrier on the domestic and international traffic out of India. JetLite (S2) was called Air Sahara, till 2007 when Jet Airways bought it out and converted it into a low-fare carrier (branded JetLite). Jet Airways always wanted to integrate both the carriers, except that there was a tax liability which hasn’t been settled 7 years down the line, and hence S2 has not been folded into the main carrier 9W. Jet Konnect was the new brand from Jet Airways, which was launched in 2009. Jet Airways wanted to create a temporary…
A first look inside the Boeing 787 Dreamliner which will go to Air India
There has been a lot of talk and speculation on Air India and its fate with the Dreamliners, but looks like it is all falling into place now. Boeing made a massive publicity stint with bringing the 787 to India Aviation 2012, one painted in Air India livery and ready to be given to the airline once the certification is complete, and Air India and Boeing can settle the tussle over the compensation to be paid to AI for the delay. Yours truly was one of the few invited to have a peep inside, and I gladly took the short hop to Hyderabad to explore what AI and Boeing were cooking up together. The plane made a 14 hour flight…
The Virgin visits India, again…
About 3 years after Virgin Atlantic last flew out of Mumbai, its making a comeback. From 28th October 2012, Virgin Atlantic plans to offer an Airbus 330 service from between Mumbai and London Heathrow. The airline will fly from London in the morning at 10 AM and from Mumbai at 3 AM, thus following the same schedule as Jet Airways and British Airways offer on this city pair. The announcement popped up on the Virgin Atlantic website today, and reservations will be offered from 4th April 2012. Clearly, this decision must have been taken much before wannabe Richard Branson (Vijay Mallya’s) Kingfisher Airlines decided to pull out of the London market. There is a lot of traffic on this route,…
I’m off to Hyderabad for India Aviation 2012
Actually, I am already here in Hyderabad and typing this post via my iPhone. India Aviation is the bi-annual airshow organised in India, and is in its 3rd edition now. I really wanted to go, but I wasn’t sure thanks to multiple professional commitments which were not sorting themselves out. The airshow is on from 14 to 18 March 2012 in Hyderabad, but it made sense only to come in one of the days of today (15 March) or tomorrow (16 march) since these are the days the Boeing 787-8, will be around. Although chatter is on about if and when Air India is getting these birds, the one that has come to the airshow is the 787 that is…
Its over – Part 1. Kingfisher International Operations closed down
A couple of days ago I wrote about Kingfisher Airlines closing down most of their international routes. London, Bangkok, Kathmandu, Dhaka went off the map first, and then soon after Hongkong went off the map as well. No news they were in bad shape. However, they were maintaining a thin operation to Dubai,Colombo and Singapore which were serviced by the A320 and they still have a few of those planes left. via AirlineRoute.net, I just got an update that the remaining international operations are also going out of the window from the 25th March 2012, when the airline switches to a Summer schedule (SIC!). Bangalore – Dubai 1 Daily service Cancelled eff 25MAR12 Chennai – Colombo 1 Daily service Cancelled…
AI proposes for $1 Billion, Boeing disposes $500 million to AI!
The Air India – Boeing duel is the stuff of folklore now. Air India seems to clearly be in the mood to milk the cow called Boeing Airplanes as much as it can, to add to its bleeding bottomline. Air India signed on to buy 27 787’s from Boeing, and these were expected to be brought on board starting 2009. The 787 program suffered multiple delays and the first few 787’s were certified and given away to ANA All Nippon Airways only last year towards the end of the year. Air India was next in line, and had a story that the airline could not function properly without the new planes and all its plans went awry. “Yeah, right!,” is…
Hidden tricks to help you get Rs. 600 off your airtickets
Cleartrip, one of my favourite travel aggregator websites has a new trick up its sleeve to give you discounts. Cleartrip has a lovely and clean mobilephone interface as well, which comes up if you use www.cleartrip.com via your smartphone’s browser. If you decide to book a roundtrip flight using your phone, you get another discount code ‘CTM’ which is valid for use till 31st March 2012. Using this, you get another Rs. 600 off your tickets apart from any other discounts you would have already received (from the airline or from Cleartrip). I tried using the same code in the website for Cleartrip, and it gave an error. Since the need to go somewhere obviously takes over, I booked a…
How to get a daily discounts on Spicejet!
Spicejet has quietly introduced a new promotional offer on its website a few weeks back using Quick Response codes. Under this promotion, SpiceJet reveals a new QR code on their website every morning, and also sends it around on their Twitter account @FlySpiceJet and their Facebook page. You have to use your smartphones to be able to read these QR codes and get the eventual discount code in the format SGDISxxx. If you don’t have a smartphone, you could use a website like www.onlinebarcodereader.com to access the contents of the code. Once you have the code, you can apply these to any fresh reservations you make till 11 PM on the same night. You need to plonk the code in the…
Free Malaysian F1 tickets on buying air tickets to Malaysia via Cleartrip/Yatra
Considering I am a Formula1 enthusiast as well, I found it hard to resist posting this one for you guys. If you choose to book tickets to fly to Malaysia on Cleartrip.com this week, you will get confirmed tickets to be at the Formula1 Malaysian Grand Prix to be held at the Sepang International Circuit on 25th March 2012. There don’t seem to be any terms and conditions attached. All they say is you book tickets to Malaysia on the website and within 2 days you’ll receive your grandstand passes for the qualifying race day (24th March 2012) and Race Day (25th March 2012). And the promotion is not limited by numbers so everyone who buys a ticket to Malaysia gets…
moneylife: My new column on tips for Kingfisher travellers
This week, I wrote some tips in moneylife for people who are booked to travel on Kingfisher Airlines amongst the current situation the airline is in. Check out my column here! Live From A Lounge is also present on Facebook, Twitter and available via RSS.
Kingfisher domestic schedule cuts 51% flights, pulls out of 18 domestic routes
I promised an update on the Kingfisher schedule inside India. The schedule that went up on 5th February 2012 became permanent for Summer 2012 when it went up on the GDS systems this week. AirlineRoute.net did an excellent analysis already, which I quote below: Bangalore – Chennai 2 of 6 Daily service Cancelled Bangalore – Hyderabad 2 of 5 Daily service Cancelled Bangalore – Kochi 10 of 24 weekly service Cancelled Chennai – Coimbatore 2 Daily service Cancelled Chennai – Hyderabad 1 Daily service Cancelled Chennai – Mangalore 1 Daily service Cancelled Chennai – Tiruchirapally 1 Daily service Cancelled Chennai – Vishakapatnam 1 Daily service Cancelled Delhi – Ahmedabad 1 Daily service Cancelled Delhi – Amritsar 2 Daily service Cancelled…
