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…
Air India
Tag Archives for Air India.
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…
Air India’s first revenue flights of the Boeing 787
Like the regular readers know already, Air India received their first Boeing 787 planes about a fortnight back. It took them 15 days to start deploying them on revenue flights while other airlines such as Ethopian took delivery and had a party flight on the way into Ethopia itself. I’ve been circumspect about the success of Air India with these new planes being inducted, however, I finally was able to confirm the schedule a few days back and I put it out on a post for aviation lovers to read and book up if they wanted to be on that flight. However, looks like Day 1 was a washout for the airline. Air India’s marketing machinery sucks and almost everyone…
Air India’s 787 first revenue flight on DEL-MAA 19 Sept ’12!
Air India, the confused Indian carrier, is up to it. They took a long while deciding when to offer the 787 flights to the public, and as per a FlyerTalk thread, this is also due to the infighting between the old Air India management and the Indian Airlines crew (which was on paper merged into AI in 2005). That said, they have finally loaded the first flights of their recently acquired Boeing 787 into their reservation systems, and the first revenue flight of the bird will be on 19th September 2012 on DEL – MAA (AI 639). Here is the extract from AirlineRoutes.net which confirmed this: Delhi – Chennai eff 19SEP12 AI439/440AI439 DEL0700 – 0940MAA 788 DAI430 MAA1045 – 1325DEL…
Why I am not too hopeful with the Air India 787 induction?!
The Air India B787 take off from Charleston I’ve been sounding negative all along about Air India being actually able to make some difference with the cutting edge 787 being added to their fleet. After a comedy of errors all these months, as the plane took off from Charlseton yesterday to be flown to Delhi, I know a lot of India is feeling like this plane is going to change the fortunes of Air India. I can’t support that view, because I’ve seen Air India go down and down over the months and years from the sidelines. Here are some things that point to them being clueless about the whole airline business maybe. Perhaps one of India’s respectable aviation journalist,…
The Jinx is broken. Air India has been delivered a Boeing 787-8!
Oh lord, this was not deemed to have happen, but it finally did. I first crossed roads with an Air India colors Boeing 787 at the Indian Aviation 2012 event in March 2012. For the record, I was not impressed with how Air India was planning to use these planes, because they were clueless themselves. At that point of time, Air India was supposed to be the second carrier to have the plane, and perhaps the first one with the GEnx-1B engines, picking them up in May 2012. That was the plan even when I visited the Boeing factory in January 2012 and talked to some people there. And then, Air India and the Government of India got greedy and…
Doing Mumbai–Dubai anytime soon? 20% off on Air India
A couple of days back I posted about a 20% discount that Air India was offering on flights from India to Hong Kong. Now, they are also offering a discount on Mumbai – Dubai, valid for sale and travel from 16th August to 30th September 2012, for one way and return journeys, in all classes. This 20% discount will not be applicable if you change your booking. Like the previous promo, this one is valid on the application of a promo code and only booking on the website www.airindia.in. The promotion code for this reservation to be valid is BODX02. Air India offers an Airbus 320/321 service on this route, and while the route is something not spectacular, this promotion…
Air India and Cathay Pacific offering discounts on India – Hong Kong
Air India is offering a 20% discount for travel from India to Hongkong in one-way and return bookings, for bookings made through www.airindia.in. The promotion is valid for sale with immediate effect, for your outward travel to start from 21st August to 15th September 2012, for one way and return journeys in all classes (Business and Economy). Your You need to enter the promo code as INHK01 in the Promo code box, to avail of the promotional offer. All of these are mileage earning fares. When you try to book, you also get a 10% discount which comes with all reservations ticketed on Air India’s website. So Mumbai-Hong Kong return fares turn out to be about Rs. 25,000 which is…
Are the stars aligning for Jet Airways in Star Alliance? Air India is now a no go!
Things have an interesting way to move around in the Indian aviation sector. Air India took 4 long years to be ready for the *A, and eventually their membership was put on hold. Last week, a full year after the Air India membership being put on hold, I wrote about Jet Airways’ formal invitation to join the Star Alliance being made public, and how it would work out for Jet Airways. In a press report by a major Indian financial news paper, which is actually an interview with India’s civil aviation minister, it now comes to light that Star Alliance has responded last week to Air India in the negative and the Government of India will be supportive of Jet…
