Jet’s November passenger traffic up by 33%

With a slew of restructuring measures paying off and the economy rebounding, Jet Airways has reported a 33 per cent increase in its domestic passenger traffic for the month of November 2009, as compared to the same period last year.

The airlines’ international passenger traffic has also registered a growth of 19 per cent on a seat factor of 81.9 per cent in November 2009, the airline said.

JetLite, the wholly owned subsidiary of Jet Airways has also done well in increasing its passenger traffic by 22 per cent and a seat factor of 76.7 per cent in the month of November 2009.

“Our improved performance in November 2009 is largely due rise in domestic and international travel following the recovery in the economy and a series of restructuring exercise undertaken recently,” Nikos Kardassis, CEO, Jet Airways told Hindustan Times.

“We have also seen rise in the yields. For December and January we have seen encouraging bookings and expect these months to be better than November,” he said.

In a bid to create a larger customer base and offer enhanced services to its international and domestic travelers, Jet Airways plans to develop Delhi and Mumbai as major hubs to international destinations.

Source: Hindustan Times

Paramount hopes to be back in air today

The Chennai-based Paramount Airways is hopeful of operating all its scheduled flights from Tuesday.

High Court Order
The airline late on Monday issued a statement that the Delhi High Court had given a “favourable” order against the decision of the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to de-register three of the airlines' five aircraft. “The Court has asked DGCA to set aside the de-registration immediately and allow resumption of flights using the three de-registered aircraft,” the statement adds.

3 planes deregistered
Last Friday, the DGCA had de-registered three aircraft that forced the airline to cancel a number of flights. The decision to de-register the aircraft was taken after GECAS, the lessor of the aircraft, claimed that the airline had defaulted on payment of lease charges.

$15-m deposit
The Paramount statement, which states that the airline had earlier received a favourable verdict in the London High Court, adds that it had paid a $15-million deposit to GECAS.

Bookings hit
Soon after the aircraft were de-registered the airline stopped accepting bookings for a number of sectors including Bangalore, Visakhapatnam and Coimbatore. The airline, which took to the skies in October 2005, flies to 16 destinations across the country and operates 72 daily flights..

Till late Monday evening there was no response from the authorities about when the airlines' aircraft would be re-registered and allowed to begin normal operations.

Source: The Hindu Business Line

Low-cost domestic carriers raise airfares on busy routes

Crippled by financial setbacks and a dip in revenues, domestic air carriers have more than doubled the fares on select metro routes ahead of a long festive season, as compared to the fares four months ago. While a Delhi-Mumbai one-way ticket priced at the lowest fare cost around Rs 2,300 in August this year, it has more than doubled to Rs 4,900 now, if booked 10 days in advance.

All the five low-cost carriers — Go Air, Indigo, SpiceJet, JetLite (erstwhile Air Sahara), Kingfisher Red (erstwhile Air Deccan) — are charging upwards of Rs 4,500 one-way to connect any two of the four major metro cities. Flyers will have to shell out around Rs 5,700 as one-way fare from Delhi to Bangalore, which used to cost around Rs 2,500 four months ago. Similarly, the Delhi-Chennai one-way fare totals to around Rs 5,400 now as compared to Rs 2,900 four months ago.

Aviation experts say that the recent hike could be explained by multiple factors which have affected the airline industry. “Airlines have posted significant losses recently; now they are trying to maximise the recoveries by hiking fares on metro routes that have high load factors,” said Kapil Arora, partner (advisory services), Ernst and Young Pvt Ltd. The pricing that was adopted by domestic carriers till a few months ago, said Arora, was highly irrational and was even below cost. “Airlines have started pricing rationally in select sectors to bring closer the break-even point,” he added. In the second quarter of 2009-10, the balance sheet of all listed airlines was splattered with red. Vijay Mallya-promoted Kingfisher Airlines posted a loss of Rs 419 crore, Jet Airways suffered a loss of Rs 409 crore and low-cost carrier SpiceJet incurred a loss of Rs 101 crore in Q2 2009-10.

Source: The Indian Express