I have been a dormant Air India Flying Returns member for the longest time. Air India was my first business travel airline, since it was the preferred carrier for my employer then, and back in the days I did fly a lot on them till other airlines such as Jet Airways found their way into this monopoly. At that point of time, I was a novice in the points game, and for my life could not figure out the perks of being loyal to an airline, except for collecting miles on my frequent flyer account. With Air India, the elite perks were always not very well defined, and it was a mystery how the guy next to me got preferential…
Air India
Tag Archives for Air India.
Jet Airways follows Kingfisher Airlines and Air India downhill
Airlines in India have really been taken on the downward spiral, for their own reasons. But the common thread of going down for all of them was having to offer low fares which did not even cover the cost of fuel. Everyone in the Indian aviation market blamed Air India for the predatory pricing, where they were keeping ticket prices really low, and hence everyone else had to follow suit to be competitive.The US Dollar/Indian Rupee moving 20% in the USD’s favour did not help them either, because all of a sudden, fuel costs, unhedged for all of them most of the time, were up 20%. Jet Airways, the classiest and best Indian airline for domestic travel for long, and…
Why Air India needs a few good men (or women)
Now, all of us know that Air India, being the flag carrier and owned by the government, is run by bureaucrats. So, they have a hit and miss track record with special promotions which are not thought through to the end, and this current one is just one of them I suppose. In a promotion launched for the international markets, Air India is offering Non-resident Indians and international passport holders the offer to travel in India on AI, with a package of tickets which cost anywhere from US$ 200 + taxes (for 2 segments) to US$1000+ taxes for 9 segments in the economy segment. Taxes per segment are usually in the region of 10$ or less per segment, depending on…
Indian Carriers now bring the widebodies to the Middle East, finally!
This has been an anomaly finally getting sorted out. While I agree and it makes sense that ports such as Dubai, Riyadh and other Middle-east posts are within the flight range of a narrowbody like a 73x or a 32x series plane, but the Mid-East carriers such as Emirates have been dumping capacity (to fly forward pax to North America etc). For the longest time they flew the B777s to India, and my expectations were set high when I first booked a BOM-DXB-BOM in 2009, without bothering to check if it was a narrowbody plane or a widebody. I was thoroughly pissed with myself for not checking up the plane when I walked into the plane to realise it was…
Unlimited flying on Air India with the new Pass!
Air India has been in the market with an unlimited flying pass for the past few months, and I thought I’d cover it now that the validity of the product was extended. For people who anticipate a lot of travel in India in a burst of 15 days, this is the product they should gun for. The product comes in two variants: The Silver Pass allows for Economy class travel for INR 35,000 (700 USD) The Platinum Pass allows for Business class travel for INR 75,000 (1,500 USD) The 15-days period starts from the day the first trip is made, and one can move across the 66 destinations of the airline inside India. This amount includes the taxes and fees…
Do you still want to travel in the Indian festive season? Here is how…
Unless you are allergic like me to paying super-duper high business class prices for economy seating to travel around India in the next 2-3 months, your options are fast getting limited to travel around in the festive season in India. Like I mentioned in this post a few days back, airlines have predictably decided to add to their revenues by jacking up ticket prices over the next few months. I was not surprised but slightly disgusted at double fares in the same fare classes which got inflated over a week or so. October to December is peak travel time in India, what with all the festivals for everyone bunching up, along with a longish wedding season coming up too! Here…
Air India won an award, what? What? WHAT?
I have my jaw dropped as I write this. I am slightly surprised that Air India can win an award for good service! And I am trying to figure this out, so stay with me till I figure this out! A tweet appeared on my timeline this evening and I rubbed my eyes when I saw it. It said something to the effect of Air India winning an award for good quality service. It kind of reminded me of the time I last got on an AI plane domestic and I was stranded for approximately 24 hours before I got on the next one. It also reminded me of the time when I got on an AI plane to Singapore…
SkyTeam courting Air India (a.k.a. the rebound after being dumped by *A)
Air India may still have a shot at becoming an awesome airline, and that one is all thanks to joining the SkyTeam ***drum beats*** 😉 I am sure the people at Air India’s helm are watching a lot of “How I Met Your Mother”, and decided to act awesome in line with the Bro Code. After being embarrassed by the Star Alliance, who AI took 4 years to ‘comply’ with the membership conditions of, and then *A leaving them alone at the altar, the news reports are now talking of SkyTeam talking to the Government of India about inducting Air India into their alliance. Speculations were ripe about this as early as the beginning of August, as per the Centre…
Heads roll at Air India
When Air India got kicked out of the Star Alliance even before it joined, I had a feeling that someone would be fired to fix the blame. And lo and behold, it did not take long for the Government of India to take a decision that it was the Chairman and Managing Director of the airline, Arvind Jadhav, a career bureaucrat who was not able to turn around the airline. So, this morning, it got into the news that he was removed from his post. Air India was a profitable operation until 2005 when it got merged with Indian Airlines. Earlier, AI used to take care of the international market, while IC was the domestic carrier. The rationale for merger…
Air India misses its flight onto the Star Alliance
Like I blogged before taking off on my 3-week vacation here, it was going to take a hell of a lot of miracles to happen for Air India to make it to the Star Alliance. The airline is in a mess, and it works the standard Indian bureaucratic way. Here is the next big news that came, although almost totally expected. The 27 member Chief Executive Board of the Star Alliance has voted to keep AI out of the alliance for the reasons of not meeting the agreed membership requirements. WSJ published the news article on this here and the New York Times has it here. This punctures the whole turnaround plan for the airline after the other issue that…
Air India: will it join the Star Alliance and should it join?
So it’s been the longest membership in the making for the Star Alliance perhaps and it might turn out to be an effort in vain after all. Star Alliance invited Air India (AI) to join the alliance in 2007, in an effort to penetrate the Indian market which was starting to make its mark in the global aviation industry just about then. The current AI used to operate as two carriers then, where Air India (AI) used to serve the international routes and Indian Airlines (IC) used to serve the domestic market. The whole process of merging the airlines, including the IT systems only completed in April 2011 and then the airline had already missed the deadline of joining in…
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