Coronavirus: Air India, IndiGo join global peers to suspend China flights

The airlines saw a large number of cancellations impacting loads.

Air India and IndiGo joined their global peers British Airways, Lion Air and Lufthansa in announcing temporary suspension of their China flights, as India clamped down on travel to stop the outbreak of coronavirus.

Air India said Mumbai-Delhi-Shanghai flight has been cancelled from January 31 to February 14, while IndiGo is suspending its Delhi-Chengdu and Bengaluru-Hong Kong flight from February 1-20. IndiGo, however, will continue to operate its Kolkata-Guangzhou flight. Air India has also decided to cut the frequency of its daily Delhi-Hong Kong flights to thrice per week from January 31 to February 14. Bookings on the routes slumped in the last few days as businesspeople postponed their tours. The airlines saw a large number of cancellations impacting loads.

Read: What is Coronavirus

In a statement, IndiGo said it has taken the decision after a careful assessment of the situation. “These are purely temporary and precautionary measures. We understand that the measures will cause inconvenience to our customers and we be refunding the full amount to impacted passengers.”

“For now we will continue to operate our Kolkata-Guangzhou flight which we are monitoring on a daily basis. As for our operating crew we are ensuring they return to India on inbound flights without any layover in China.”

Rejig of Oyo brass: Aditya Ghosh joins board, Rohit Kapoor becomes CEO

Oyo has recently undergone large-scale corporate restructuring, setting up several subsidiaries and bifurcating operations globally

Just a little over a year after being named chief executive officer (CEO), Oyo Hotels & Homes’ top boss Aditya Ghosh will move to a board position at the company, handing over the reins to Rohit Kapoor, the CEO of Oyo’s new real estate business.

The move comes at a time when Oyo has started talking of its initial public offering plans and has just been valued at over $10 billion. In a letter to employees earlier on Monday, Ghosh outlined a broad strategy he will follow in his new role.

Ghosh, who joined Oyo from IndiGo Airlines where he was president, said in an internal email he would take over his new role at Oyo “from January 1… In my new role at the board, I will provide oversight as Oyo evolves into a truly global high performing company that scales sustainably on the path to profitability with higher expectations from consumers, asset owners, investors, and employees. I intend to actively focus on five key areas, namely safety and security, customer experience, corporate governance, revenue management, and stakeholder communications”.

As a board member, he is joining Oyo founder and group chief executive Ritesh Agarwal, Betsy Atkins, founder and CEO of Baja Corporation; Munish Varma, managing partner, SoftBank Vision Fund; Bejul Somaia, partner at Lightspeed India Partners Advisors; Mohit Bhatnagar, managing director, Sequoia Capital India Advisors…

IndiGo asks pilots to stop pushing Airbus engines to limit after shutdowns

IndiGo is the world’s top A320neo customer. It has 730 of the latest model on order and wants to expand its network.

IndiGo has told its pilots to stop pushing engines on its new Airbus SE jets to the limit when the planes are climbing, after India’s aviation regulator said the practice may have contributed to turbines failing in the air.

All the budget airline’s A320neo aircraft now use a lower thrust setting following take off, according to a spokeswoman from IndiGo, which has suffered 13 engine shutdowns during ascents this year. The decision was taken “in order to make every possible effort to minimize exposure of engines,” she wrote in an email, adding that manufacturer Pratt & Whitney stated there’s no evidence of a connection between climbing procedure and engine incidents.

Ascending at maximum power can help burn less fuel as it takes less time to reach cruising altitude. IndiGo made the switch only after India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation found in a probe—first reported by Bloomberg on Friday—that full-thrust climbs could wear down the engines and probably contributed to the shutdowns, people familiar with the matter said earlier.

IndiGo instructed pilots of the A320neo-family of jets last month to use no more than 93% thrust on the Pratt engines until they reach 25,000 feet (7,622 meters), the people said. They asked not to be identified because the change hadn’t been made public.

The airline spokeswoman said the change had “hardly any difference” in day to day operations, beyond taking two to three minutes longer for aircraft to reach optimum flight level due to lower thrust settings. “Difference in fuel consumption is marginal,” she said…

‘Golden age’ for aviation sector; huge opportunities ahead: IndiGo chief

Bringing ATF under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has been a long pending demand of the airline industry

With strong fundamentals, India’s civil aviation sector is in its “golden age” and there is also healthy competition among domestic carriers, IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta has said. Interestingly, the country’s civil aviation sector has been experiencing lower growth in traffic compared to previous years and there has also been softness in fares in October, according to industry experts.

The traffic grew just 1.18 per cent in September, as per the latest available official data.IndiGo, owned by InterGlobe Aviation, is the country’s largest airline with a market share of 48.2 per cent in September. While acknowledging that there are problems, including high taxes on jet fuel, Dutta said there are huge opportunities going forward.

“We are in the golden age of Indian aviation and there are huge opportunities going forward… There are always problems, there are always issues and economic cycles. (But) The fundamentals are strong,” he told PTI in an interview. According to him, tax on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) is 30 per cent higher than rest of the world. Bringing ATF under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has been a long pending demand of the airline industry. “Then there are throughput charges for which we should be getting credit for taxes paid,” he added.

IndiGo has been aggressively expanding its operations and has started 11 overseas routes in the last one year. Recently, it placed an order for 300 more planes from Airbus and is also considering wide-body aircraft for long haul routes. On whether there is healthy competition among local carriers, Dutta replied in the affirmative…

Trust deficit prevails in the board, says IndiGo’s independent director

In his mail to the former Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) chairman, Khanna also questioned Damodaran’s call for meetings of the board

IndiGo’s independent director Anupam Khanna has called upon chairman M Damodaran to come up with “confidence-building measures” to remove the “trust deficit” that has built up in the board of India’s largest airline.

In his mail to the former Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) chairman, Khanna also questioned Damodaran’s call for meetings of the board, as well as audit and remuneration committees after IndiGo‘s annual general meeting (AGM) later this month, to resolve governance issues. The mail was shared by co-founder Rakesh Gangwal on August 7.

Damodaran’s suggestion was against what was proposed by Gangwal, who had alleged that the new proposed structure of the board will only add to the powers already enjoyed by InterGlobe Enterprises (IGE), owned by fellow co-founder Rahul Bhatia. And if the proposed structure was cleared at the AGM, it would lead to further governance issues, Gangwal had argued. He wanted the steps to be taken before the AGM…

IndiGo and SpiceJet make web check-in paid service, flyers tweet protest

Low cost airlines IndiGo and SpiceJet have announced they will charge fees for their online check-in service, looking for ways to make up for higher costs but drawing protests from flyers.

Latest News : Low cost airlines IndiGo and SpiceJet have announced they will charge fees for their online check-in service, looking for ways to make up for higher costs but drawing protests from flyers.

Check-ins at airports will be free. IndiGo’s lowest seat fee is Rs 100 and SpiceJet’s Rs 99. Passengers earlier paid exra fees only for select seats, like along the aisle, window-facing or with additional legroom, if they checked in online.

Mumbai-based low cost carrier Go Air is still offering some seats for free. Full service airlines like Jet Airways, Vistara said they don’t charge for seat selection. IndiGo and SpiceJet’s decision comes at a time when airlines are struggling with rising costs but can’t afford to raise ticket fares due to competition.|Indigo-Spicejet Tweet Protest

Such charges will help to boost ancillary revenue of the airlines. Ancillary revenue consists of charges like baggage fees, seat selection fees, cancellation charges.”Based on our customer preference we have made some changes in pricing for advance selection of seats. This is a usual practice followed by airlines globally and across India,” IndiGo said in a statement.

Experts said that airlines were free to charge for the online check-in service as aviation regulator DGCA has allowed unbundling of services. “Airlines are not in violation of law. According to rules, they can charge of such services,” said Lalita Bhasin, partner at law firm Bhasin & Co.

READ MORE: Business Standard OR BS