While all the carriers in India jumped on the opportunity to charge for seat selection to shore up their revenues, Air India seems to be opting out of the game, at least for domestic sectors. When fare unbundling was announced in India, all the carriers rushed to charge for seat selection. Indigo went ahead and wanted to charge you for every seat, including the middle seat. Then, the regulator realised its mistake, and limited the seats on a plane, which could be charged as special seats to 25% of the cabin. As per the news, this is their logic: The aviation regulator has directed that airlines can offer only up to 25% of seats for pre-booking. So at most, we…
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Kuwait Airways in the fray for Spicejet?
I know it is easy for names to be thrown around, but this one seems to be from a credible source. Spicejet has changed hands and names quite a few times, with the last being the change of management control, when Spicejet was sold to the Sun Group of India. Rumors going around were that Qatar Airways will be investing in the airline. However, Qatar Airways has rubbished this in the past. Last evening, Indian dealmaking website VCCircle however talked about a new participant in the deal, and they say Kuwait Airways may be interested in picking up about 25% of the airline, for a sum of Rs. 1,000 Crores (about $166 million). Unlike Jet Airways where the deal also…
How to work the current fare sales in India: a primer
I thought I bored you guys enough with the barrage of fare sales that hit yesterday. There were one too many: Jet Airways, Indigo and then Spicejet. I know all of you are not being able to get through, so I will try and do the best I can to help you. First, lets go with Jet Airways. In the post I wrote yesterday, I told you the basics of their offer. There was a small footnote there, which I was not sure of at that moment, and hence not in the main text. Small tip: look for one-way tickets. Round-trip will not show the correct fares! It turns out that Jet Airways has now included this in their terms…
Spicejet enters the fare war with Jet Airways
I’ve had a long day full of meetings, and I’ve been not exactly in front of the computer all day long. So to recap, Jet Airways made the biggest fare sale in recent times this morning, and if you haven’t got in, there is time ahead. Next, Indigo matched it and undercut by a small amount. Now, Spicejet took it upon themselves to be in the game as well. So, as if the 2013 INR fare sale they made in January was not enough, they announced the new sale a short while back on Facebook. While I am not clear at this moment if this covers all their sectors, I checked randomly and I found some good deals on a…
Spicejet is all set for Guanghzou
Spicejet has been working on a maverick strategy to open up new routes rather than just operating on the tried and tested ones. They were the first ones to set up operations to Pondicherry with a Bombardier Dash Q400 a few days back, and opened up ops to Kabul, Male and Riyadh, places not frequented by your everyday airline in India. The strategy to work with new airports is working out for them it seems, with profits back in place this year. Now, they fly a Boeing 737 fleet (800 and 900ER series), and a Q400 fleet. They are going with a Boeing 737 to Guanghzou (South China) with a Delhi (DEL) – Guanghzou (CAN) flight ready to go this…
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…
Spicejet sale: Rs. 2013 a.i. for travel anywhere in India
I love SpiceJet sales because they end up making me book tickets when I have no plans to go anywhere. To beat the lean season of travel (February – April 2013), they just unleashed a new promotion this morning which is valid for tickets booked on January 11 – January 13 2013, for travel between February 1 to April 30, 2013. Here are the offer details: SpiceJet, India’s preferred low fare airline, presents The Big Sale, 10 lakh seats up for grabs at an all inclusive fare of 2013! Simply log on to www.spicejet.com and book direct flights to any domestic destination on SpiceJet, for travel between 1st February to 30th April, 2013. Terms and Conditions: Offer valid for bookings…
Pondicherry finally gets air connectivity
Pondicherry is one of my favourite towns in South India, although I must admit I last went there quite some time back, maybe 5 years or more. This little French post of yore has very good weather, good food, some good hotels as well. The trouble, it never had an airport when I used to be there. So, one had to get to Chennai (MAA), and drive from there on the scenic East Coast Road to get to Pondicherry. Now, I was completely unaware that they were building an airport there, infact their own little tourism website states Chennai to be the closest airport. But as per Wikipedia, there has been an airport in the making here. As per the…
Is phone booking the new way to avoid credit card convenience fee on Spicejet?
I’m slightly foxed and I have no answers since last evening so I am crowdsourcing this one to ask and tell if my assumption is true or is this just fluke. Last evening I was trying to book a flight for my brother on one of his upcoming trips. We picked a flight, and decided to go with SpiceJet since that worked best for his schedule at that point of time. Here is what the fare looked like online. Of course, what they were not showing here was the convenience fee of Rs. 125 which is now another tack for all credit card fees being passed on to customers, which would have made the total cost of this ticket to…
Spicejet offering Mumbai–Male for Rs. 12K roundtrip, Delhi-Male for Rs. 14.5K
A few days back I wrote about the inaugural fares being offered by Spicejet for their flight to Male (Maldives). While the offer still exists, I was surprised to know today that they were offering a combo fare on that flight, from Mumbai, and maybe other destinations as well. I only found out when a friend booked and tweeted about it. So, here is the deal. If you want to go to Maldives, and are happy to fly Spicejet, from Mumbai (BOM) to Cochin (COK) and then onwards to Male (MLE), you can score a fare for as low as Rs. 12,000 all inclusive. Fares from Delhi are very impressive as well at Rs. 14,500 all inclusive, basically the same…
Spicejet offers inaugural fares to Male
Spicejet is starting a daily service to Maldives capital Male from November 29 onwards, which will be operated on their Dash8 Q400 planes, from Cochin to Male and back daily. The operational timings will be: Kochi-Male 12:50(Dep) – 14:10(Arr) Daily Male-Kochi 14:45(Dep) – 17:05(Arr) Daily Spicejet is offering inaugural fares for the flight, for Rs. 4,999/- one way all inclusive. Maldives is usually a expensive place to be in, but if you want to go, this should be a good fare to catch. Maldives own airlines also just launched a flight to Mumbai and Chennai on an Airbus narrowbody plane. Visa is issued on arrival for 30 days, free of cost. Related Posts: Maldivian to launch services to Mumbai and…
