National carrier Air India has added 28 new stations for its airport upgrade scheme ‘Get Up Front’, which enables passengers to upgrade to Executive Class by paying a nominal fee. The addition takes the total number of stations where the offer is valid to 45. The new stations are Chandigarh, Gwalior, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Khajuraho, Leh, Srinagar, Udaipur,

Air India could look at acquiring up to 100 aircraft for meeting its requirements for a five-year period beginning 2011. A clear picture on the exact numbers is likely to emerge in the next few days after a review meeting of the fleet requirement is completed here on Wednesday.


The National Aviation Company of India (NACIL), the company into which Air India and Indian have been amalgamated, is assuming a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12 per cent in international traffic and 15 per cent in the domestic traffic as forecast for meeting its fleet requirement, sources told Business Line.

The aircraft requirement are being considered keeping in mind not only the growth in the domestic and international markets but also sixth freedom operations rights that have been given to Air India.

The sixth freedom rights allow an airline to pick passengers from a country other than its origin and carry them to a third country.

06/11/07 Ashwini Phadnis/Business Line

With private Indian carriers setting high passenger service standards, the Maharaja - which is in the midst of a do-or-die makeover - has been forced to pay attention to this long ignored aspect.

Known for indifferent passenger handling over years, the National Aviation Company India Ltd (NACIL) - formed by merging Air India and Indian Airlines - has for the first time set up a strategic business unit (SBU) for ground handling at airports. Its entire focus will be on facilitating passenger movement at airports.



'All airport functions that Air India and Indian Airlines used to perform like security and baggage handling would be done by this SBU and its focus would be on customer care,'' NACIL CMD V Thulasidas said. Also, the new ground handling policy cleared by government mandates AI to form a company to do the job.

''For airport check-in we have decided to deploy only our own people, including new recruits,'' said Thulasidas. Among other things, the check-in experience at AI counters has been a sore point with travellers, mainly abroad, where this job is outsourced. On the other hand, the sole private Indian carrier flying abroad, Jet, and the one waiting in wings to do so, Kingfisher, highlight customer service as their USPs.

05/11/07 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

The Air India Express will begin its flights to Dubai from here Sunday, making Jaipur the 11th Indian city for the airline to have direct flights to the Gulf.

The flights will be on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.



The airliner will also commence its flights from Lucknow to Dubai on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, making it the 12th city to have flights to the Gulf.

The flights from these two cities have been included in the airline's new winter schedule effective Oct 28, an official release said Saturday.

With the introduction of the new flights, Air India Express will now operate 46 flights a week to Dubai from 12 Indian destinations - Kochi, Kozhikode, Thiruvananthapuram, Mangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Trichy, Amritsar, Nagpur, New Delhi, Jaipur and Lucknow.

27/10/07 NEWSPost India

Air India employees have a reason to cheer.

The government plans to make them shareholders in the new Air India carved by merging Indian and Air India.


According to sources 5% of the IPO that will hit the markets in a year or more will go to employees as esops. The offer price has been pegged at Rs 10 per share.


Merchant banking sources say that the Government of India is likely to raise between Rs 2,400 crore and Rs3,800 crore through the proposed public issue of Air India.

This figure is based on the assumption that the government will offer 20-25 percent of the airline's stock.
14/09/07 CNN-IBN

National carrier Air India may substantially scale up its fleet size to nearly 200 aircraft by 2011. It is currently undertaking an internal exercise to assess demand for aircraft till 2011 and beyond, company chairman V Thulasidas told ET.


As part of this exercise, a fresh fleet expansion plan is being contemplated in order to cater to traffic growth.

“We are working on traffic projections beyond 2011,” Mr Thulasidas said. The two merged national carriers would have a combined fleet size of around 125 aircraft by 2011 after taking current orders (which are being executed) into account.

The old Air India and Indian Airlines had placed orders for 111 extra aircraft in 2005-06. These are in the process of being inducted into the fleet by 2011.

05/09/07 Economic Times

Jet Airways will "cooperate" with Air India to capture a larger share of international air traffic as it does with other global carriers, the company's chairman Naresh Goyal said in New Delhi on Tuesday.



"Air India is doing a great job. It will be a very good airline," Goyal said as he announced the launch of his carrier's new five-flights-a-week service to Toronto via Brussels from Wednesday.

"If we cooperate with Air India, the new Air India, we definitely can get a 50 per cent market share. We look forward to cooperating with Air India," he added, as Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, listened with attention.

Air India has plans to become a large carrier with a dominant position in both the domestic and international segments after the merger with Indian Airlines that has the government's approval.

Goyal said Brussels will be the hub for his carrier in Europe and eventually proposed to serve at least 50 destinations either on its own or through partnerships with other carriers.

04/09/07 Indo-Asian News Service/Hindustan Times