AVIATION

Win 320,000 Skywards Miles from Emirates expanded website

The Colombo office of Emirates has announced that passengers who book their travel on-line will be rewarded with a chance to win a total of 320,000 Skywards Miles from December 2011 to March 2012, as they experience the expanded functionality of the Emirates website www.emirates.com/lk The equivalent of 12 return tickets — four to Dubai, four to Singapore and four to the Maldives — these Skywards Miles will be presented each month to three adult fare paying passengers who booked on-line, in tranches of 40,000 (redeemable for a free Colombo ? Dubai return), 30,000 (a Singapore return) and 10,000 (a Mal‚ return), the airline said.

To be eligible to win these valuable rewards, passengers will be required to complete outbound travel in the month their on-line bookings were made.

“The expanded Emirates website is now a one-stop-shop for booking core travel needs,” said Emirates Sales Manager Devika Ellepola in Sri Lanka. “It offers an extensive range of land products such as hotel accommodation and car rentals, which can even be purchased independent of an Emirates flight booking.”

She said the on-line booking promotion was intended to encourage a wider segment of customers to experience the enhanced functionality of the site and view the broad spectrum of travel related services on offer.

In addition to the Skywards Miles that can be won through this promotion, passengers who make use of the Emirates website can also save on air travel purchases. They can purchase additional baggage allowance at a 20 per cent discount by making payment by credit card, saving both money and time spent at check-in counters at the airport.

Accommodation and car rental bookings can be made as a part of the online flight booking process, via the ?Manage a Booking? tool on the website or as standalone reservations through the ?Book a Hotel/Car? tab, with the latter enabling even those who do not book air travel with Emirates to make reservations via the airline?s website. A choice of more than 23,000 hotels in approximately 3,200 cities in 130 countries is available to those who book hotel accommodation via the website.

In addition, passengers from countries which require a pre-arranged visa to visit the United Arab Emirates (UAE) can apply and pay for visas through the Emirates website.

Travellers with the airline who travel to or stopover in Dubai can complete the entire process from submitting the application to receiving the UAE visa through the website, without having to even submit their passports for stamping. This can be done after booking the flight through the ‘Manage a Booking’ tool.

GoAir flies on new routes to lure passengers

Mumbai: GoAir, run by the Wadia Group, has come out with an innovative way to attract passengers and reduce distribution cost. The smallest of all domestic airlines by market share, GoAir has rolled out a loyalty programme making it the first low-cost carrier to launch such a scheme.

Typically, full-service carriers have frequent flier or loyalty programme in which fliers are rewarded with bonus points, which can be used for free tickets, upgrades to higher class, extra baggage allowance, lounge access and other benefits.

However in some ways GoAir’s scheme is different. The membership of this programme is open to only those who book tickets via the airline website.

“The idea is to encourage people to use airline site more often.

This will help the carrier save on distribution costs as it would not have pay agent commission,’’ an airline source said. Also the ‘Go Club’ loyalty programme will have electronic and paper less membership, thus cutting administrative costs.

Go Club members can use reward points to get discounts on airline tickets and for purchases at pizza joints, ice cream parlours and other partner outlets.

Business Standard

Kingfisher debt restructuring

Banks have no plans to carry out a second round of debt restructuring of the ailing Kingfisher Airlines which has an outstanding loan of around Rs 6,419 crore, Parliament was informed today.

“ State Bank of India, leader of the consortium (of 11 lenders to Kingfisher), has stated that at present, there is no plan,” Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

He was replying to a question on whether lenders are planning to carry out a second round of restructuring of loans to help Kingfisher.

The Minister further said the airline has a total outstanding loan liability of Rs 6,419.60 crore, which include Rs 9,730.37 crore provided to Kingfisher for non-fund based activities.

Economic Times