File this under the steal deal section or make good use of it. SpiceJet, the airline which started the concept of aggressive sales in India last year, is back with another sale which looks great. This is their third sale this year (2015), and is valid for flights between July 2015 to October 2015. Named the ‘Cheaper than train fares’ sale, the sale is on till 13 February 2015, for flights between July 1, 2015 to October 24, 2015 across SpiceJet’s domestic and international network. The flights are non-changeable, non-refundable so you can either take them or don’t bother cancelling them, except if huge taxes are involved. Domestic fares start at INR 599 while international fares to SpiceJet’s limited international…
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Spicejet changing hands, again.
SpiceJet, one of India’s oldest airlines, is going to change hands, again. Due to the recent financial troubles the airline has been through, where they were practically grounded for a day, the airline has been running a thinner operation than its planned 340 flights a day, down to 200 flights a day approximately. It turns out, SpiceJet will be sent back to its co-founder Ajay Singh, who will along with a set of investors take over the ownership of the airline from the current owners Sun Group and implement new measures to bring the bleeding airline back to shape. Ajay Singh sold out from the airline in 2010. There is no sign of the amount of the transaction, so we…
Spicejet flights grounded, to take off at 4 pm IST today
Spicejet, which has been facing an existence crisis, has been not exactly in the pink of health recently. They’ve started cancelling flights while returning planes, and then were asked to close in bookings to one month only by the Government of India. Just earlier this week they were knocking on the doors of Government of India to speak to them, and the government offered them the following way forward: Spicejet can now take bookings till March 31, 2015 Airports Authority of India would wait another fortnight for their payments Oil marketing companies who supply fuel to SG were asked to provide fuel on credit till December 31, 2014. They can raise short term loans of upto INR 600 Crores backed…
SpiceJet limited to bookings 1 month ahead only by regulator
Looking at the troubles Spicejet is undergoing at the moment, the regulator for aviation safety in India, DGCA, ordered them to stop accepting bookings beyond the 30 day period, amongst other measures they took against the airline over last weekend. First things first, here on, because Spicejet’s schedule integrity has gone for a toss, the DGCA ordered it to stop bookings for a period more than 30 days out. Initially, Spicejet did not comply with this decision, however here on, you cannot book Spicejet tickets more than 30 days out. Their website displays this notification very clearly. When I tried searching for a ticket more than 30 days out, I got nothing. However, they are still selling tickets for the…
Spicejet cancellation update
Spicejet has been in the middle of a storm recently. The airline has been trying to restructure itself by trimming operations, but has a huge backlog of tickets it has sold over the year and multiple sales (called as Market Stimulation Efforts). Hence, there has been a spate of cancellations over the past month or so, and I wrote a post the other day summarising the list of cancellations being made by Spicejet till December 2014. However, Spicejet has now come out with an official list of its own, where it summarises all the cancellations for the current date and up to the month end of December 2014. As much as it is unfortunate, if your flight is on this…
SpiceJet Cancellations Summary
Spicejet has recently been cancelling a lot of flights over the past couple of weeks, or merging flights. As per the airline, this is the result of a restructuring going on at the airline where they are returning planes or having them come back at lower leases. A lot of travel plans have gone awry as a result of these cancellations and there is no commentary on the SpiceJet website about cancellations and how to resurrect your travel plans from there. Initially, the airline promised to resurrect these flights over a week, which are over 50 in number. However, it does seem it will take longer to do so, perhaps even all of December. I happened to recently notice an…
In which, a buffalo rams into a plane on its take-off roll
I sometimes wonder if I have seen enough of life, or do I need to see some of this stuff I keep hearing about. What I heard about today was totally bizarre and unimaginable. At the Surat Airport (STV), in India, there was a stray buffalo, which hopped on to the runway in the dark, right when a Spicejet flight was on its take off roll, on its way to Delhi. This incident happened last evening at about 7:30 pm. The plane, a Boeing 737, has had some gruesome damage, however all the passengers on the plane were fine. Not surprisingly, Spicejet decided to discontinue their flight operations from Surat after this incident. Here are some pictures, courtesy the Twitter…
Reviewing the SpiceJet Hot Breakfast
SpiceJet is working on a reinvention all this year, and amongst the other things they are working on, is the food they serve on the flights. Being a no-frills airline, they only offer Buy-on-board meals, but the public verdict about the food was not great earlier. Taking that feedback on board, they reworked the menu, and tied up with the TajSats for catering on board. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to be on a SpiceJet flight for my travel from Mumbai to Kolkata, and while I can do without a meal on a shorter flight, since this is a 2.5 hour long flight, and they operate from the bus gates in Mumbai where there is no provision for lounges, I…
SpiceJet enhances meal service to encourage pre-booking
SpiceJet has been working on turning their airline around for quite a while. Some of the things include the launch of the new SpiceMax product, an On Time Guarantee, and new meal options with a new caterer on board. Towards improvising their meal service even further, SpiceJet has made some changes to their meal service sequence as well. Remember, SpiceJet does not have meals included on board, but a buy-on-board concept. From their website, they’ve added new service guarantees, where people who pre-order their meal on the website (while booking/using Manage my booking), will be served the meal they ordered, which should be a sitter. However, they will also be served first, which is I think a better proposition because…
SpiceJet launching SpiceMax on August 15, 2014
SpiceJet Max was the earlier name of SpiceJet’s bundled services, where they offered any seat access as a part of the product proposition. This helped getting the premium seats (the front and emergency exits) before anyone else by paying for it. Here is a blurb for the earlier version of SpiceJet Max. Now, the airline is reinventing itself over the past months, and like I wrote here in May, SpiceJet has been reconfiguring all their Boeing 737s to offer a genuine enhanced legspace product for which the airline could charge the premium (INR 500-600 while booking). The product has already been available on some planes, as they came back from reconfiguration, but from August 15, 2014 the product will be…
Airfare sales: Indian airlines going for each others jugulars?
Considering this is my personal blog, this could be my op-ed piece this weekend. I’ve been noticing two trends this year. Firstly, a certain red airline has been putting out a lot of fare sales across the board this year. I have lost count and I haven’t even put out all the sales on the blog but only a few of them. Have a look: Jet Airways, Indigo and SpiceJet offering Indian fare sales till August 4, 2014 Spicejet & Indigo offering sale fares for travel between August to October 2014 SpiceJet INR 999 sale for 2015 dates SpiceJet and Indigo 40% off sale fares till June 19 Selective Fare Sales on Jet Airways and SpiceJet today SpiceJet selling tickets…
