Just a quick rant on Air India, looking at some very unimpressive news I read about how things are run at this government-owned airline today. Apparently, one lady pilot at the airline decided to take things into her own hands, defy crew scheduling instructions and operate a hopping Mumbai – Jodhpur – Delhi flight, because she had a food parcel to pick up at the Jodhpur airport. Best part, they let her in. The humor in this situation, the local tabloid which reports the incident has published the recipe of the speciality snack as well in the newsreport. Snacks on a plane, anyone? Yesterday, we also found out that the clerks and the top men of Air India, as in…
Air India
Tag Archives for Air India.
Air India’s attempt to sneak into Star Alliance
Air India seems to be making all the right moves while its competitor for the Star Alliance membership Jet Airways is busy trying to make a strategic alliance with Etihad. What I cannot figure out is, why was the Indian Civil Aviation ministry’s unnamed officials making all the noises about the conversations between 9W/EY before it was formally announced. Anyways, as per more noises from the said ministry and a newspaper report published today, seems like Air India and the ministry (the owner of Air India) are reaching out to the member airlines of the Star Alliance to get them to vote in favour of Air India joining the alliance. They also insist that airlines are conveying to the civil…
Air India goes 787 on Delhi Paris CDG from January 2013
Air India is flush with their Boeing 787s now, and as per the recent reports have received 4 Boeing 787 planes as of December 31, 2012. Since September 2012, when they took delivery of the first plane, the 787’s are now in operation on various domestic as well as international segments for Air India. They are frequently found on DEL-BLR-DEL, DEL-MAA-DEL, DEL-CCU-DEL in the domestic skies. Internationally, Air India first put them out on the Delhi – Dubai segment (DEL-DXB-DEL), and then introduced a flight to Frankfurt on the 787s in October 2012. Air India says the 787 has made this route operationally profitable. With the addition of new planes, now the next route which is intended to be moved…
And now, an Air India domestic fare sale till Nov. 21, stacked with another roundtrip discount
Last week was the fare-sale from Indigo and SpiceJet, where they were offering fares as low as Rs. 1,699 for a 72 hour period. Now, it seems, full-service carrier Air India has decided to follow the same route and offer a fare sale on all its domestic routes. From today till November 21, Air India will be offering all inclusive fares in four fare slabs Rs. 1,799, Rs. 2,699, Rs. 3,699 and Rs. 4,199 for flights on all their domestic routes for the period of travel being between 16th January to 31st March 2013. Here are some of the fares which will be available: Chennai-Delhi: Rs 3,699/- Delhi-Kolkata: Rs 3,699/- Chennai-Mumbai: Rs 2,699/- Delhi-Mumbai: Rs 3,699/- Chennai-Kolkata: Rs 2,699/- Kochi-Trivandrum:…
Air India’s Mileage redemption is back online
Air India’s frequent flyer website, www.flyingreturns.co.in had knocked off the capability to redeem miles online with effect from 17 August 2012, temporarily. Many wondered why this decision was taken. I did not have a chance to write about it then, but was seemingly due to the abuse of their online redemption system by some insiders (yes, don’t be surprised!) Anyways, the good news is the system is back up live now and you can make your award redemptions online going forward. I hope they’ve been able to plug the loopholes that caused them to take the system offline. You see a screenshot of the live system again. Air India is not the best airline out there to fly around India…
Air India 787: Flying to Frankfurt from Oct 15!
Air India recently received its third 787 plane, the first one completely built in their new facility in Charleston. This plane, VT-ANI has arrived in India on Tuesday, and now Air India has the sort of numbers to rotate planes for an international flight of the medium/long-haul variety. Like I posted earlier, this was the plane expected to be handed over a while back. Another 787 is coming to them in October 2012, and then one more expected by the end of this year. Air India is now expecting to launch their international flights on the Delhi-Frankfurt route from October 15, 2012. However, habitual of them, they have not updated this in the GDS yet, and there is no trace…
Indian Government admits to being partisan to Lufthansa
I was just about to shut my laptop after writing my last post on the Air India – Star Alliance wriggle. But I just happened to note a new news report from The Economic Times, which also got a soundbyte from the aviation minister of India at the same place Reuters got its news from. For posterity sake, rather than quoting the article, let me leave a screenshot, because stories can be refiled online after an intervention. Now, let me quote the relevant bits: Civil Aviation minister told media that Lufthansa, which is the founding member of Star Alliance, was given a lot of benefits to ensure that Air India joins the grouping. “I believe a lot of facilities were…
Air India is back to Lufthansa for Star Alliance again
You have to give it to Air India, they are making an attempt unparalleled in history to join an alliance. When they had the ball in their court, they just wouldn’t move fast enough and took 4 long years getting ready for integration. As a result, last year Air India was given the boot from Star Alliance, making them the first airline ever to be thrown out before joining. Jet Airways was extended the official invite to join the alliance instead. Now, Air India has gone back to Lufthansa for the nth time to ask for their assistance in getting into the little circle of airlines. This has been reported by Reuters today. India plans to ask Germany’s Lufthansa AG…
Spoof on Air India’s 787 Dreamliner
I saw this interesting spoof on Air India’s new 787 planes, which I am sure would leave you in splits! Please scroll over to 16:00 Minutes, or use this link to watch it directly on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZetzkhvLUk&feature=youtu.be&t=16m Enjoy the dreams! (H.T. to BangaloreAviation.com) Live From A Lounge is present on Facebook, Twitter & available via email, RSS.
Air India unleashes a fare war, Jet Airways, Indigo & SpiceJet follow!
This was bound to happen, I say. Air India has not been having its ‘fair’ share of the Indian domestic market for the past few months, where Indigo has taken the lead now (27.6% as of August 2012) and Jet Airways (along with JetLite) are the second largest players (with 25.2% marketshare of Indian domestic pax). Air India has been lagging behind for a long while and now at 18.2% marketshare. So, finally, the political masters of the airline, read the Indian civil aviation minister, one day told the airline it should quickly get marketshare. When there is no plan, the one plan that works beautifully in a price-sensitive market such as India is undercutting. This is what Air India…
Air India’s 787 updates
Air India received its first Boeing 787-8 airplane a couple of weeks back, and started to put it on domestic service after some confusions. The Aeroblogger website carries an interesting guest post, which is a trip report on the Delhi-Bangalore segment served by the plane. In the meanwhile, Air India received its second Dreamliner VT-AND in mid-September as well. Word is that VT-ANI, the first Dreamliner built in Charleston will be also handed over to Air India shortly. Air India is picking up good loads at least on the Delhi-Bangalore flight of the 787. The trip report hints to that, and also a pilot who said recently AI to Bangalore was going with 244 pax on board. Keeping that in…
