Aviation Boom In Maharashtra as 4 new Airports take flight in 2017!

Nashik Airport Terminal. Source:Wikipedia

The year 2017 has proved to be great for flyers in the state of Maharashtra, as new destinations  got direct flights to Mumbai! 

Air India Regional began services to Shirdi in October, while TruJet connected Nanded to Mumbai in November. With the announcement of Air Deccan's flights to Nashik, Pune and Jalgaon from Mumbai (that will begin on 23 December), the total number of airports in the state with scheduled commercial services will go up to Eight.

This year, the Government of India announced 45 new air routes awarded to airlines under the first round of its Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) for civil aviation, also known as UDAN – Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik, seeking to make flying more affordable.

Under UDAN, the operators would be extended viability gap funding (VGF) in which 80 percent of the subsidy will be provided by the Central government and the remaining by the State Government. Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Nayan Choubey said that on each flight, 50% of the seats would have a cap of Rs 2,500 per seat/hour. Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said the scheme provides for various benefits including no airport charges and three-year exclusivity on the routes. 

Under this RCS, Hyderabad based Turbo-Megha Airways (parent company of TruJet Airlines) were awarded the Mumbai - Nanded route. They also connect Nanded with Hyderabad. The services began in November 2017 with ATR-72 aircraft.

Bengaluru based Air Deccan, promoted by Capt. Gopinath, will operate under RCS on the Mumbai- Nashik- Pune and Mumbai - Jalgaon routes in Maharashtra and will also link Mumbai with Kolhapur and Solapur in the future. Deccan Charters announced commencement of services on 23rd December 2017. 

Air India Regional began services to Shirdi in Ahmednagar district after it was inaugurated on October 1st. Their ATR-72 connects Shirdi to Mumbai and Hyderabad.

Alliance Air signs long-term lease agreements for 10 aircraft with Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) Ltd.

Alliance Air, a wholly owned subsidiary of Air India Limited, has signed long-term lease agreements for 10 ATR 72-600 aircraft with Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) Ltd.

The aircraft are scheduled to deliver throughout 2017 and will be used to grow Alliance’s network and to serve underserved or unserved airports throughout India as part of the Indian Government’s focus on regional air access through the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS). 

Alliance Air began inducting new ATR72 aircraft in December 2014 to fuel it's ambitious regional expansion programme. It also offers the lowest fuel-burn and seat mile cost on its segment. The aircraft is fitted with Pratt & Whitney 127M engines, and features a full-glass cockpit with the most modern navigation aid tools.

 

Air India's NEO addition and the continuing A320 saga.

Air India has become the latest A320neo operator after taking delivery of the first of 14 aircraft leased from Kuwait headquartered ALAFCO Aviation Lease And Finance Company.

As of January 2017, Air India operates the oldest A320s yet in operations. And VT-EXF, delivered to the carrier in February 2017 is only one month old! The age gap is a record-breaking 27.9 years!!! 

The oldest of A320s, MSN 24 joined the Indian Airlines (IC) fleet in 1987, when the cutting-edge, 'fly-by-wire' aircraft were as much a rage as the NEOs are today.. These A320s were specially configured, featuring 'double bogey' Main landing gear to cope with weaker runways in India. They were the mainstay of  Indian Airlines' domestic and regional international fleet right through the 1990s and the 2000s, working alongside IA's jet fleet of A300s and B737-200s. They were the sole A320 operators in the 90s when all private operators chose to bring in Boeing narrow body jets. When IC and AI were merged in 2007, the old A320s got repainted in the Air India Livery.

Seven of those beauties are still operating today, although news reports that the National carrier plans to phase them out keep appearing in the headlines..

Indian Airlines next big wave of Airbus family inductions happened in 2006 when it placed an order for 43 aircraft comprising 20 A319s, four A320s and 19 A321s, valued at approximately $2.2 billion. Airbus began delivering these planes in 2007, bang in the midst of the merger process. These new airbuses allowed IC to phase out its ageing Boeing 737-200 fleet. Some of the 732s were hived off to Alliance Air and a few more were converted to cargo. Some of the A320 family deliveres were made in the new livery. A few A319s still sport this interim livery.

In 2015, Air India leased five winglet equipped A320s in an 'all economy' configuration from Chinese lessors in a bid to replace the ageing A320s. This was soon followed by the ALAFCO deal for 14 NEOs, which are being delivered now. Another eight NEOs will be sourced from GECAS and the airline has issued tenders for a further seven A320s.

Incidentally, according to Airbus, more than 6,000 professionals in India contribute directly and indirectly to all Airbus programmes through a network of over 45 Indian suppliers, and every aircraft produced today is partly made in India!

Air India moves to Terminal 2 at London Heathrow Airport

Air India, the national carrier of India, has moved to London Heathrow Terminal 2: "The Queens Terminal" on January 25, 2017.

The move is in keeping with the Star Alliance policy of getting all its member carriers under one roof, ensuring seamless connectivity of passengers between Air India and other Star Alliance carriers.
Air India joined the Star Alliance in July 2014. Initially the goal was to make the move by September 2016 but got delayed to January 2017. The move finally brings all 24 Star Alliance carriers together under one roof for the first time at London Heathrow Airport (LHR). The Air India Check-in counters will be located in Zone-D.

Terminal 2 is LHR's newest Terminal. It was opened in 2014 and includes automated kiosks for multi airline check-in and a smoother connection between Star Alliance carriers. The terminal has four Star Alliance lounges, including the Air Canada, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines and United Airlines lounges so Air India passengers travelling in either First or Business Class or holding Star Alliance Gold status can now choose whichever lounge they would like to use.

AI operates 7 daily flights from LHR, including twice daily to Delhi, once daily to Mumbai, Four times a week to Ahmedabad and thrice a week to Newark. Incidentally, the Indian national carrier has been continuously operating from LHR to India for the past 69 years, having commenced flights from  Bombay to London in June 1948!

Air India deploys their Boeing 747-400 on the Delhi-Mumbai route.

Air India deploys its veteran Boeing 747-400 on the heavily congested Delhi-Mumbai route.

VT-ESO Khajuraho basks in the Mumbai Sun

The Delhi-Mumbai air-route is the world's 6th Busiest route by Aircraft movements and by seat capacity! More than Four Million passengers flew this route (one way) in 2016. Six Indian domestic carriers flew a total 140 daily services (both ways) in 2013! A cursory glance at FlightRadar24 data reveals that the route is presently served by a whopping 66 daily services each way! This includes 60 on narrow body aircraft and 6 on wide-body aircraft.

 The route has obviously had a lions share in the astonishing 20% growth that Indian aviation has been witnessing in the past few years. However, growth on this route is hitting a plateau thanks to air-side congestion at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaja International Airport (BOM). The airport runway already handles around 50 air traffic movements during peak hours, making BOM the world's most efficient single operational runway airport. Airport operators MIAL stopped allocating new slots during peak hours in the Summer16 schedule, meaning that airlines couldn't add more services during peak hours to cope with the demand. Deploying larger aircraft on the densest of routes out of BOM ended up being the most practical solution for airlines who were struggling to match demand with capacity.

In December 2016, the national carrier decided to deploy its iconic Boeing 747-400 aircraft on the BOM-DEL route. This aircraft has more than twice the capacity of their regular 'two-class' Airbus A320, meaning a 100% increase in capacity for the same landing slot! This is not the first time a wide-body has been deployed on the route, though. Air India already operates their Boeing 777s and 787s on BOM-DEL as international connector flights. Their competitor Jet Airways also operates the wide-body Airbus A330 on the same route.

AI's move is reminiscent of domestic routes in Japan back in the day when 747s with dense seat configs used to be the mainstay for short domestic journeys. These routes are now operated by 777s and 787s.

AI's jumbo-jet domestic flights were launched on December 14 2016 with one daily flight each way. Air India operates a total 12 daily flights each way on this, the busiest domestic route in the country. Buoyed by the positive response, Air India deployed a second 744 on the route within weeks, one flying BOM-DEL-BOM and the other DEL-BOM-DEL. The airline also upped the free baggage allowance on these 'jumbo' flights, allowing 40 kilos and 50 kilos in Economy and Business class respectively. 

The domestic operation is currently being managed with two aircraft, VT-ESO, based in DEL and VT-ESP based in BOM. VT-ESO, named Khajuraho, operates AI678 to BOM in the morning and then flies back to DEL as AI888 in the evening. VT-ESP, named Ajanta, operates in the reverse rotation, flying to DEL as AI806 in the morning and flying back to BOM as AI805 in the evening. 

Air India's 747-400s can carry 423 passengers; 12 First class seats on the upper deck of the aircraft, 26 seats in business, and the rest 385 in economy. The aircraft sub-type joined the fleet in 1993 and were the flagships of the national carrier for more than a decade before making way for the next generation long range aircraft like the Boeing 777 and 787. Today, almost 25 years down the line, the few 747-400s that continue in service are the only remnants of the once large fleet of thirty B747s (all variants) that once handled all of the Maharajah's long haul duties around the world.

The Boeing 777 (left) has taken over long haul duties from the 747-400

Apart from the BOM-DEL route, AI deploys the 747-400 on the BOM-HYD-JED and COK-JED routes. The 747-400 is also used for  "Air India One" duties on international state visits. However, due to the relatively high cost of operating these ageing beauties, the domestic utilization of the 747-400 is deliberately being kept low with each aircraft only operating one flight in each direction per day. With the aircraft slated to be phased out of AI's fleet by the end of 2017, these domestic flights provide many with the opportunity of flying "The Queen of the Skies" one last time before she flies into the sunset!

Bloomberg misquoted our data, says FlightStats

In a prompt reply to Air India, FlightStats clarified that Bloomberg's report wrongly showed Air India as the 3rd worst in "On Time Performance", whilst citing FlightStats data as its source. The reply came hours after Air India, wrote to the Portland, OR based Aviation Insights company, saying that the data presented in the report leads one to "speculate" of the "intentions" behind the entire exercise.

"Air India strongly contest the data shared and veracity of the report... Air India will take a strong action and leave no stone unturned to ascertain and bring to light any biased or malicious intent to spoil Air India's image," the airline said in the letter.

The Bloomberg report that attempted to rank airlines based on Punctuality quickly went viral. The report had stated;

"Every year, the aviation insights company FlightStats puts together a list of the international airlines with the best on-time performance records. It's the capstone to the company's year-round efforts to track delay and cancellation patterns for airlines across the globe. We've asked them to share all of their annual findings so we can point out the losers, too. Without further ado, here are the full results, along with your likelihood of getting delayed on each carrier:"

It its reply to AI, FlightStats clarified;

"Our Data, which was a measure of 97.7% of your arriving flights, indicated that 61.29% of AI's flights arrived within the A14 threshold. Bloomberg applied its journalistic license to invert the A14 (formula) result to highlight the percentage of delayed flights being 38.17% and indicated that the number was a predictor to future delays. This is not how we would portray airline OTP; nor were we given access to the Bloomberg article prior to it's publication."