Business Aviation

Need to attract more leisure travellers:

Singapore airlines to promote more inbound traffic

Shirajiv SIRIMANE

Singapore Airlines would introduce new packages to woo more leisure travellers to Singapore said the new Country Manager of the airline in Colombo, C.H. Chia.

Speaking to Daily News Business he said that outbound business class traffic was very impressive. “We need to attract more leisure travellers and family to travel to Singapore,” he said.

Singapore in addition to Christmas shopping discounts in department would be hosing a Grand Prix next year. In addition the country would be adding new entertainment facilities such as resorts, giant merry-go-round similar to London Eye, Casinos and more to attract travellers.

The Country Manager whose last posting was in Hyderabad, India said that Sri Lanka has been an exciting destination for the airline.

“This is why we have remained in the country both in good and bad times for over 35 years,” he said. The Country Manager said that they have a very good passenger load for Australia via Singapore and to other destinations by students pursue higher studies overseas.

He said that many Sri Lankans want to be a part of aviation history and are booking in large numbers to fly to Australia in the new luxury A380.

“Unfortunately it is still hard to reserve a seat in this aircraft as the demand is so high from Singapore,” he said. The airlines will soon introduce two more A380 aircraft to Japan and London. However, he said that inbound traffic to Sri Lanka is unimpressive.

“People like to visit Sri Lanka. They are being mislead by negative western adverse publicity against Sri Lanka,” he said. The airline is also trying to promote Buddhist tourism packages to Sri Lanka.

The former Country Manager, Ser Yi Lee, would be posted to Netherlands. Singapore Airlines will increase the frequency of its Singapore - Milan - Barcelona service from four times weekly to daily from 14 January 2008.

Qatar, first to be powered by gas-based fuel

Qatar Airways today entered into a landmark agreement with key players across the aviation, fuel and educational sectors to power its aircraft with natural gas.

The revolutionary move would see Qatar Airways become the first commercial airline in the world to operate flights using gas-to-liquids kerosene fuel seen as the technology of the future that will be environmentally friendly, helping to significantly reduce carbon emissions and reduce the impact on climate change.

A Letter of Intent was signed at the Dubai Air Show today to investigate fuel-related benefits of using Synthetic Jet Fuels to power aviation turbine engines.

Qatar Airways has been joined by Qatar Petroleum, Shell, Airbus, Rolls Royce, Qatar Science and Technology Park and Woqod (Qatar Fuel Company) for the intensive study to be carried out over the next few years.

During the ‘Working Together Agreement’ signing ceremony, Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker spoke of how the global spotlight was firmly on the most sensitive issue facing the world - that of the need to be more environmentally responsible.

“There is a huge movement lobbying for the reduction in carbon emissions to make for a cleaner and safer environment,” he said. “The aviation industry has been at the centre of this highly topical debate. We as industry leaders gathered here at this press conference are committed to this cause and today’s move highlights how serious we take this important issue.

“Together with our partners, we will all work in close collaboration to study the use of synthetic jet fuels, or GTL kerosene in our drive towards a cleaner and safer world. And we at Qatar Airways look onward to becoming the first airline in the world to power commercial aircraft with natural gas.”

Qatar Airways currently operates one of the world’s youngest and fuel-efficient fleet of 58 all-Airbus aircraft, and was highly committed to the development of environmentally-friendly synthetic fuel for commercial aviation.

The consortium’s research will focus on the benefits of using GTL kerosene, with particular emphasis on improved air quality, fuel economy and reduced carbon emissions in an around airports and at cruising altitude.

Qatar Petroleum and Shell are currently building a multi-billion dollar, world class, fully integrated gas-to-liquids complex, which is set to transform the State of Qatar into the GTL capital of the world. GTL kerosene will be an important component of the Pearl GTL project, intended to be marketed as a natural gas derived synthetic component for jet fuel.

Abacus unlocks group booking on Malaysian, Singapore airlines for Lankan travel agents

Sri Lankan travel agents have a powerful new group-booking tool at their disposal to help them manage group bookings on leading international carriers Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines.

General Manager of leading global distribution service (GDS) Abacus International Lanka, Desiree Karunaratne, announced an agreement in which Abacus will support the two airlines with the Abacus Group solution from November 1.

“Extending the Abacus Group solution to these two leading airlines will make it quicker, easier and more accurate for Sri Lankan travel agents to manage Group Bookings from first enquiry to fulfillment,” Karunaratne said.

From within the Abacus Group stable, Malaysia Airlines will be activating Abacus GroupPush for travel agents in Sri Lanka, whilst Singapore Airlines will be activating Abacus GroupClaim.

Abacus GroupPush and Abacus GroupClaim help the airlines to manage the costs of group booking activities. The airline maintains control over who manages the group bookings from its airline system, while reducing the costs of supporting Group PNRs.

The Group PNR is created by the local airline sales offices’ reservation system which is then ‘pushed’ to or ‘claimed’ by the Abacus-connected travel agents’ systems.

This transfers the ownership of the PNR to the travel agent, who is now free to service the PNR through the Abacus system instead of calling the airline reservation officers.

Area Manager, Sri Lanka and Maldives, Malaysia Airlines, York Philips, said “We implemented Abacus Group push in this market and are confident that it will prove to be an effective tool in improving the travel agents group handling experience with MAS.