Last week was full of news articles about how a new Aviation regulator is coming up for India. The currently existing Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGCA) will soon be replaced with a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which will be an autonomous regulator for Indian civil aviation, unlike DGCA which is under the Ministry of Civil Aviation in India. Business Standard published a very good news report on the proposed structure of the new aviation regulator, and how it needs to be self sufficient. Unlike the DGCA, CAA will need to earn its own bread and butter. Here is how it proposes to do that: CAA will primarily get revenues from three sources: First, the Airports Authority of India will…
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India, welcome to unbundled fares!
The Indian Civil Aviation market is up for a change, since after years of disallowing unbundling of fares, the aviation regulator & minister have finally come around to allow this move, in line with global practices. As per the new regulations, notified earlier this evening, the aviation regulator has allowed the following services to be charged for separately: Preferential seating Meal/snack/drink charges (except drinking water) Charge for using Airlines’ lounges Check in baggage charges Sports equipment carriage Musical instrument carriage Fee for special declaration of valuable baggage The regulator expects that base prices of tickets will go down when various services will be unbundled, however, I do not expect this to be the case because airlines in India would rather…
The economics of Spicejet’s fare sale and justifying the regulator’s action
I got quite some amount of pushback on the SpiceJet sale that happened last weekend and I thought I’d pen down my thoughts here. I think there were 2 sorts of concerns, firstly about people not being able to find the fare and secondly about the concept of the sale as a whole, with a bleeding market as a whole. I first heard about the sale on Friday morning 0800 IST approximately, and immediately got down to work on rearranging some of my existing travel which would have anyways happened for me or my family. For instance, I had a ticket booked for my brother, who was going to be on a DEL-JAI-BOM flight during the sale period and was…
Travelling to the US/Canada/India via Europe? Now more checked bags for you!
Last year in October, I wrote about the Indian aviation regulator sending a stinker to all foreign airlines operating from India, about the baggage allowance of 1 23 kg (50 lb) checked-bag being not the standard offer for passengers travelling economy, while all Indian airlines offer 2×23 kgs (50 lb) baggage to be checked-in. We never heard much of it back then, but seems like the arm-twisting worked with the Lufthansa group. In a change of tack, Lufthansa has announced a new allowance for passengers travelling between India and the USA, Canada (or vice versa) on Lufthansa group airlines. Lufthansa, Swiss, Brussels Airlines and Austrian Airlines will offer two 23 kgs (50 lb) bags as checked bag allowance for all flights ticketed on or…
Kingfisher Airlines a prime case for shutdown: DGCA
I don’t intend to be soothsayer on this blog, but at the same time not a doomsayer either! I’ve been trying to be very positive about Kingfisher Airlines in my head for a very long time, and something tells me, that if they survive this ongoing phase of problems, they will come back as a stronger service-oriented institution in the new changed environment. However, for the time being, the troubles seems to be getting bigger and bigger for them, making them perhaps a case for being jilted from oneworld before they get to join, just like AI got the boot from Star Alliance. I love those guys, seriously. They gave me 2 free domestic Kingfisher First class tickets last year, on…
