11. February 2007


Date: 11. Feb. 2007
Airlines, logistics players and businessmen line up with orders.
Obscured by the roar of fighter aerobatics at the Aero India 2007 air show in Bangalore from 7-11 February, is the buzz of business being done in a far less glamourous field: civil aviation.
Visitors feast visually on the red-and-white Russian MiG-35 and the American F-18 and F-16 on the display tarmac, but a new generation of moneyed Indian businessmen prefers to inspect the largest display of executive jets ever seen at an air show in India.
The third biggest aircraft company in the world, Canadian manufacturer Bombardier is here, along with US giant, Raytheon, that has brought an unprecedented four executive aircraft to consolidate its 60 per cent hold on the Indian market.
Aiming at selling more than fifty executive jets over the next three years, Raytheon vice-president Ted Farid says that Aero India is different from any air show he’s ever seen before. Here, businessmen come to buy, he says, not to watch.
Farid says Raytheon has already sold five jets in three days and the numbers could rise. “Indian businessmen, unlike their American counterparts, don’t flaunt wealth. American corporations buy aircraft at an earlier stage on the income curve; but as Indian business is going global, corporate heads really need their own jets”.
Civil aviation is seeing even larger spending than military aviation. Despite last year’s big signings for airliners —- Air India’s $11 bn order for 68 Boeings, Indian Airlines’ purchase of 43 Airbus aircraft for $2.2 billion, and similar purchases by newer airlines like Kingfisher and GoAir —- companies like EADS (the parent company of Airbus) at Aero India eye bigger bucks ahead. EADS pegs India’s demand for airliners at 1100 aircraft, worth $105 billion, over the next 20 years.
These airliners cover just one segment of the market: the metro and inter-city shuttles between 61 airports that are presently connected by scheduled airlines. Flights still do not operate to the majority of India’s 450 airports, 126 of them run by the Airports Authority of India.
This is the segment that low-cost carriers (LCCs) such as Air Deccan are building growth on. Air Deccan Chief Operating Officer, Warwick Brady, points to a McKinsey study indicating that 50 per cent of India’s highly qualified graduates live in towns and cities that are not serviced by airlines.
This could change: Minister for Civil Aviation, Praful Patel, announced on Tuesday clearance for private operators to set up new regional airports, “ built on privately owned lands, within permissible civil aviation parameters.”
Mr Patel also said New Delhi would discuss with state governments the activation of 300 airstrips lying unused across the country. Targeting this demand are exhibitors such as Sukhoi Aviation with its 95-seater Superjet 100, developed in Russia as the Russia Regional Jet (RRJ).
Sukhoi pegs India’s future demand for regional jets at 150 aircraft. Flaunting an international order book of sixty aircraft, Sukhoi declares that newer Indian airlines like Air Deccan and Kingfisher have expressed interest in the Superjet 100, and that there will be signings soon.
Another buzz surrounds the cargo business, currently at a microscopic 4200 tons per day. Aviation analysts at a two-day civil aviation conference during Aero India 2007 agreed that India’s cargo infrastructure was practically non-existent. But plans to build cargo terminals as part of new airports are changing the cargo landscape.
Boeing announced a major expansion in its cargo presence; confronting Boeing head on is Russia’s Tupolov Aircraft Industries. Marketing Director, Evgeny Efimov candidly declares his intention to out-punch Boeing’s “second-hand 757 cargo planes on offer” with brand new Tupolev Tu-204C aircraft that can lift a cargo of 30-35 tonne. An unidentified Indian airline, says Efimov, will be signing up later this month in Moscow for five Tu-204Cs with an option for ten more.
Another major area of business is in the field of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO). Despite labour costs being 60 per cent lower in India, the major MRO facilities in the region are at Dubai and Singapore.
Now Kingfisher has announced a joint venture MRO, which will come up next year in partnership with Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and a foreign partner. Deccan Aviation has announced the setting up of Deccan Technical Services to meet its own MRO demand.
With pilots in short supply, training facilities are coming up quickly. Boeing has announced a $185 million investment in training facilities, while Air Deccan has announced a partnership with French manufacturer ATR for a training centre in Bangalore, with the latest generation of flight simulators. This will service Air Deccan pilots as well as other carriers.
Source: http://www.business-standard.com


Date: 11. Feb. 2007
Passengers of a delayed Air Deccan Delhi-Kolkata flight were at the receiving end when they discovered on landing here at 2.30 am on Sunday that their luggage had not been loaded on the same flight.
When the 171 bewildered passengers of Flight DN702 ran into unhelpful staff they filed a complaint at the airport police station.
Flight DN702 was scheduled to fly from the capital at 8.20 pm last evening. Instead, the passengers had to spend a harrowing four hours before the flight ultimately took off at 12.20 am and reached Kolkata at 2.30 am. On landing the Air Deccan officials announced that not a single luggage had been boarded.
Ajay Agarwal, one of the passengers, said: “When some of us had asked the air-hostess, she said that the luggage had been loaded alright. After fooling us the officials at the airport told us that the luggage could not be loaded due to a technical snag. They also said that the 182 pieces of luggage would arrive at 6 pm. They made us sign forms giving our names and addresses.”
But the passengers were irritated when the officials failed to give a satisfactory reply. They merely said, “You will come to know when the luggage arrives. There is nothing to get so worried.” “How can we not get worried. Many of us had to catch international flights. Some girls were supposed to be engaged and there was a heart patient who had to take his medicine. A student had to fly to Kanpur to sit for his IIT interview. Even though it is a low-cost carrier they cannot afford to be so lackadaisical,” Agarwal said. He added that the carelessness of officials led to mob fury and agitation at the airport. It was then that 30 passengers went to the airport police station and filed an FIR against the company at around 5 am.
“When a police sub-inspector gave the officials a warning over the phone, they relented and told us that they would arrange for getting our luggage as soon as possible. But the problem is that no Air Deccan flight from Delhi to Kolkata is scheduled for today and hence nothing can be said about when our luggage will arrive. This is highly inconvenient,” said Agarwal.
He said that on Monday they will file a criminal case against Air Deccan and also move the Consumer’s Forum.
Praveen Kumar, SP of North 24-Parganas, said: “We are investigating into the matter. We have also told the Airports Authority to look into the matter so that the passengers get their luggage as soon as possible and they are not inconvenienced any further.”
Source: http://cities.expressindia.com


Date: 11. Feb. 2007
Ahead of the crucial group of ministers (GoM) meeting on Monday to decide the fate of the merger plan of Air India and Indian Airlines, Left parties have stepped up their campaign against the move. They have alleged that the merger would adversely affect the fortune of workers in both the companies. They have asked the government to instead come up with a concrete plan for the welfare of the workers in both the companies.
“After the merger, the government wants to break it into five subsidiary companies and a holding company. It will have a lot of ramifications,” said CPI(M) politburo member MK Pandhe. Pandhe, also the leader of CPI(M)’s trade union wing, the CITU, said the government is yet to answer many questions, including the common wages and seniority of the workers. “Working conditions in Air India and Indian Airlines are different. The government must make a concrete plan for the workers,” he asserted.
Under the holding company, the five subsidiaries would be Air India (international operation), Indian Airlines and Alliance Air (domestic operation), Air India Express (low cost international operation) and a cargo company. However, he conceded that the Union minister for civil aviation Praful Patel was in constant touch with the Left leaders and trade unions.
Pandhe gave a clear hint that something is cooking against the government’s merger plan, as trade unions of both the Air India and Indian Airlines are preparing to hold a joint seminar to discuss the government’s merger plans.
Interestingly, Patel, Pandhe and AITUC leader and Lok Sabha MP Gurudas Dasgupta have also been invited to attend the seminar. “In the seminar we would raise our protest against the move. I am told that Patel has also been welcomed to present his views,” Pandhe added.
Source: http://www.financialexpress.com