Business AVIATION

Emirates spread wings to India

Set against a backdrop of booming trade ties and escalating travel between Dubai and India, Emirates, one of the world's fastest-growing carriers has announced plans to advance its Indian operation with 18 additional flights per week, from last month.

The Dubai-based airline will step up its frequencies to the country's capital city, New Delhi, and IT hubs, Bangalore and Hyderabad, progressing its Indian footprint to 132 flights per week - the highest ever frequency for an international carrier in the Indian skies.

In time to support the holiday season, the new frequencies will be introduced between July and October 2008. Closely following its recent announcement to introduce a second daily operation to New Delhi, Emirates will introduce four additional weekly frequencies to the capital city.

The enhanced capacity 18 flights per week will provide corporate travellers smooth connections to international business hubs such as New York, London, Frankfurt and Paris via Dubai.

At the same time it will offer more flight options to N. India's holiday seekers and students travelling to North America, UK, Switzerland and Mauritius.

Cargo movement is also expected to gain momentum as the increased capability; over 300 tonnes per week supports the growing export.

Also known as the Silicon Valley of India, Bangalore, will be served with seven additional weekly frequencies two of which will be introduced in July and the remaining five in October.

Emirates will progressively increase its Hyderabad service to 18 flights a week by 1st October.

The additional flights will be operated by ultra-modern Boeing 777 and Airbus A330-200 aircraft in two and three-class configurations, and will inject over 5900 seats on the Indian routes.

Singapore airlines adds second daily A380 London

Singapore Airlines will increase its A380 services on the Singapore-London route to double-daily from September 20.

The Singapore - London route becomes the first in the world to be operated double daily by the new super jumbo.

The SQ318 and SQ321 service is currently operated by an A380 four times weekly. The additional A380 flights will operate on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, following the delivery of the sixth A380 aircraft to Singapore Airlines from manufacturer Airbus in September 2008.

Singapore Airlines first started daily A380 operations between Singapore and London in March 2008, and increased frequency to 11 times a week in mid-July. In addition to London, the Singapore Airlines A380 flies daily to Sydney and

Tokyo. Singapore Airlines is the first to fly the A380, and the cabin product introduced by Singapore Airlines has been well received by customers since commercial services started in October last year.

Price war in the sky

Budget carriers IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir seem to be heading for a price war with big boys of aviation - Jet Airways, Kingfisher and Air India - in a move that would benefit low fare seekers.

A day after the three full service airlines along with Deccan increased basic fares by 10 per cent, the three budget airlines, controlling more than 25 per cent market share, resisted any such move till late Friday evening. This has forced Vijay Mallya-controlled Deccan to reverse its decision to hike fares on Friday.

"Deccan's proposal to hike fares by 10 per cent has been put on hold so that its guests can continue to enjoy value flying," said a spokesperson of UB group that owns the airline.

A senior SpiceJet official said no decision could be taken. Bruce Ashby, IndiGo's CEO and president, did not take calls or respond to SMSs when this correspondent tried to contact him to get comments on any possible fare hike. Go Air officials also remained tightlipped.

Interestingly, another value carrier JetLite, a subsidiary of Jet Airways, has also not gone for any base fare hike. Instead, it has launched a discounted fare scheme to lure passengers. Courtesy. Hindustan Times