Analysis: Emboldened by Etihad deal, Turkish Airlines seeks additional flying rights to India

by Vinay Bhaskara

Late last week, The Times of India reported Turkish Airlines, one of the world’s fastest growing airlines in the world, wanted to more than quintuple its Indian footprint, requesting an increase in weekly seat allocation from 4,000 to 20,000 seats per week, and gain access to Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Amritsar, and Ahmedabad.

Turkish is also requesting an increase in its weekly frequency allocation from 14 weekly flights (one daily each to Mumbai and Delhi), to 70 flights per week.

Reportedly, Turkish Airlines’ Indian general manager Adnan Aykac made the following statements with regards to his carrier’s requests:

We currently fly 14 flights a week — a daily from Delhi and Mumbai each to Istanbul. This is very limited capacity. We have asked the government for more destinations as we want to fly to all the six metros [Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai], Amritsar and Ahmedabad. We want to have 70 weekly flights from eight cities in India. We are ready to mount the flights that we seek to and from the new cities as early as possible. Delhi and Mumbai are among the most expensive airports in the world, with Delhi being costlier than Mumbai. But these are the two gateways to India and generate almost 70% of all international traffic to and from India. Indian carriers can start flights to Turkey whenever they want. This will be a commercial decision. There are many places whose airlines fly to India without an Indian carrier going there like Amsterdam, from where KLM flies without any Indian carrier going to Holland. 

Turkish Airlines may have some weight behind its request thanks to the timing. As a condition of the recent purchase of a 24% stake in full service carrier Jet Airways by Etihad Airways (with the Abu Dhabi government behind it), Etihad asked for and received a massive increase in seat allocation through the bilateral air service agreement (ASA). Etihad now controls more than 92,000 seats per week between India and Abu Dhabi, while other Middle Eastern rivals like Emirates (54,000) and Qatar Airways (24,292) control more than the 20,000 seats requested by Turkish Airlines. However, Turkish Airlines lacks the political clout of Jet Airways head Naresh Goyal, which might affect its chances of getting an expanded bilateral. And the so-called Jetihad deal is under further review by concerned parties in the Indian government.

Regardless of the outcome of its request, Turkish Airlines already has a strong presence in the Indian market. As with much of its route network, the success is predicated on connectivity across its global hub at Istanbul. Currently, Turkish operate daily services to both Delhi and Mumbai, and each destination is primarily utilized for connecting Indian passengers westbound to Europe, Africa, North America, and (now) Latin America. In 2012, only 24% of Turkish Airlines passengers at Mumbai (where it had a seat factor of 82%) were origin and destination (O&D) passengers from Istanbul, while the figure was 23% at Delhi (on seat factors of 75%).

The five largest origin points for Turkish Airlines service to Mumbai in 2012 were Tel Aviv (despite nonstop service from Israeli national carrier), Stockholm Arlanda, London Heathrow, Washington Dulles, and Chicago O’hare. Arlanda, Dulles and O’hare all lack nonstop service from Mumbai. The market between Washington DC and Mumbai was sized at 38,232 passengers in 2011, while Chicago – Mumbai had nearly 62,367 annual passengers. The five largest origin points for the Delhi flights were Tel Aviv, Barcelona, Washington Dulles (an annual market size of nearly 61,235 passengers), Berlin Tegel, and Copenhagen. Mumbai and Delhi were of course the two largest inbound feeder markets for Turkish Airlines’ services to Washington Dulles, and both airports were amongst the top 5 feeders for Turkish Airlines service to Tel Aviv and Berlin. Delhi was a top 5 feeder market for Turkish Airlines flights to Sao Paulo, Barcelona, Bremen, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Madrid, Nuremberg, Milan and Venice, while Mumbai was a top 5 feeder market for Chicago, Los Angeles, London Heathrow, and Rome. It is interesting to note that Turkish Airlines has won a large share of traffic between Germany and Delhi, despite the presence of German national carrier Lufthansa in Delhi with the largest aircraft available; the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental. Perhaps this lost traffic is behind Lufthansa’s long standing request to operate the Airbus A380 to Delhi?

The services to Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Amritsar, and Ahmedabad will likely follow much of the same pattern. While Bangalore and Chennai are reasonably well served to Europe, the remaining destinations all lack connectivity. Africa and Latin America are un-served, as is the United States, to which these destinations had more than 1.7 million passengers worth of annual demand in 2011 (436,881 – Bangalore, 481,748 – Hyderabad, 398,941 – Chennai, 244,185 – Ahmedabad, 108,581 – Kolkata, and 100,000 – Amritsar).

Turkish Airlines currently serves 235 destinations worldwide on a fleet of 218 passenger aircraft (carrying 39 million passengers in 2012), including 38 in Africa, seven in North America, two in Latin America, and 87 in Europe (with several more in each region announced). Its hub at Istanbul’s Ataturk International is one of the fastest growing airports in the world, with traffic having more than quadrupled to nearly 45 million passengers in 2012 from 11.3 million in 2002.

However, space is constrained at Ataturk, and the airport is now heavily congested, with airline on-time performance in June of 2013 at Istanbul Ataturk registering at an abysmal 38.02%. Turkish has already begun to develop Istanbul’s second airport, Sahiba Gokcen, as a secondary hub. Traffic there hit 14.5 million annual passengers in 2012, but these growth pressures should be resolved by the end of the decade, as Turkey has broken ground on the world’s largest airport in Istanbul.

Analyst's views are individual and may not necessarily reflect the views of Bangalore Aviation.

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Exclusive interview: G.M. Toh, General Manager India, Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines (SQ) is one of the most respected airlines in the world. Bangalore Aviation was honoured to have an exclusive one-on-one with Mr. G.M. Toh, the airline's head in India.

Q. Please give us an overview of the trends you’ve seen in the Indian market over the past 6 months? What do you see in the next 6 months? 12 months? 24 months?

The air travel as a whole is dependent on the world economy. While a lot of air travel is essential, there is a high component of discretionary travel as well, and when there is a slow down, both corporations and individuals cut back on air travel. So yes, there has been an impact on Singapore Airlines.

In India, travel was good till end last year. The Indian domestic market was recording double digit growth. The growth slowed down by the start of the fiscal to single digits, and in the last few months we are seeing a contraction. It is a shocking slowdown, especially considering the Indian economy is growing at 5%~5.5% and normally air travel growth is 2x the economic growth. Clearly there are some other factors at play. This is purely my personal view, it is possible that the current economic growth is being driven by rural India where air travel is not significant. The increases in air fares could also be a factor, but I feel there is a softening of demand.

On Singapore Airlines itself, we are a listed company so we are not allowed to disclose information that is not already published and available to public. At a macro level, if you see the last published resulted for the fiscal year ended March 2012, our performance has been impacted considerably, especially in the last fiscal quarter i.e. January to March 2012. In the quarter one of fiscal 2013 i.e. April to June, 2012, the results were better than expected, but the overall results are not as good. While we are still reporting profits, margins are slim and not at previous levels.

Our growth has moderated. Long haul flights are very challenging for us, given the high fuel prices. We have had to cut back on longer haul flights like Houston, but growth this year is focussed on Asia. We have added services to China, Indonesia, a little bit to Australia, and to India.

At Mumbai, we are growing from 14 services a week from Mumbai to 21 from November, a 50% growth. At Hyderabad we are increasing Silkair services from a daily, to nine a week. We have announced new SilkAir services to Vishakhapatanam (Vizag). In total we will grow from about 79~80 fights a week in July 2011, to 93, a growth of 14 flights, which is good considering these depressed times. 50% of this growth has been in Mumbai were we have traffic rights. As you know our traffic rights to the top five cities of India are very constrained, so we add where we can.

Q. A lot of growth is on SilkAir (MI) rather than Singapore Airlines. Is this growth, a brand driven exercise, or an aircraft driven one, considering Singapore Airlines has only wide body aircraft, while SilkAir has only narrow body (A320 family) aircraft?

It is a little complicated. By and large it is aircraft driven. A lot of the newer destinations like Vizag and Coimbatore, cannot handle larger aircraft. There are also factors like traffic rights. We are unable to expand to the larger Indian cities due to constrained traffic rights. The newer destinations are smaller cities and we operate narrow bodies due to traffic capacities and economic reasons.

Q. How do the forward bookings for Indian travel look given the economic slowdown here and continuing economic woes in the rest of the world?

There is no doubt there is a softening of demand across domestic and international travel, but due to our added services and destination we are overall okay compared to last year, but I am sorry I cannot give specifics.

Q. How is competition from the MEB3 (Middle East Big 3 Three - Emirates, Qatar, Etihad) affecting Singapore Airlines, especially on the India to US routes?

We do not compete too much with MEB3. Their main markets from India are the middle east, Africa, Europe and to a lesser extent the United States. To the US east coast, frankly, they [MEB3] compete with the European carriers. To the west coast, which is a far smaller market than the east coast, from the south and east of India we compete well. From the west and north, the routing does not favour us as much. We operate two flights a day each to San Francisco and Los Angeles. Most of our traffic from India is to the east i.e. Asia and Australia / New Zealand, and there the MEB3 routing does not afford them to compete with us.

Q. Singapore Airlines currently operates its 777-300ER with the 1-2-1 ultra-premium business class product on the red-eye flights from Delhi and Mumbai, but does not on its remaining Indian sectors, especially Bangalore. Please give us insight as to why this is?

There are two factors. The 777-300ER is space intensive cabin, specifically meant for long distance flights. Our business class is an ultra-wide 1-2-1, 4 abreast configuration compared to the 2-2-2, 6 abreast of our competitors. Even our economy we have a nine abreast economy cabin, while some of the big middle east carriers are flying ten across. [Editor's note: Emirates and Etihad, and now Jet Airways have this 10 abreast ultra-narrow configuration].

So our 777-300ER has only 276 seats compared to 330~340 seats of our competitor. We have put in fewer seats recognising that long haul flights require more comfort for our passengers. Mumbai and New Delhi are like Shanghai and Beijing in China. One is the commercial capital, one is the national capital, and in recognition of the commercial importance of these markets, we limit operations of the 777-300ERs to these cities, both in India and China.

The second factor. You will observe world-wide airlines are cutting back on the traditional three class aircraft of First, Business and Economy. First class is a very limited product and very few routes can remuneratively sustain First class, on a regular basis. You will observe we offer a First class only to Mumbai and Delhi in India, Shanghai and Beijing in China, Sydney and Melbourne in Australia, Auckland in New Zealand, and Tokyo in Japan.

In response to your question, why not Bangalore. Bangalore has good corporate demand and good business class traffic, but it does not have a sustainable First class demand. Across the world for markets similar to Bangalore, most carriers, including Singapore Airlines operate a two class aircraft. So we do not operate our 777-300ER which has a First class cabin due to market matching.

Q. How does the financial performance look on the secondary Indian routes by Silkair to airports like Coimbatore, Kochi, and Trivandrum ?

It is no secret that Singapore Airlines and Silkair are aggressively cutting back non-performing routes. We left Amritsar in 2009 for example. Coming to these secondary routes, we started Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram) in 1991, Kochi in 2001, Coimbatore in 2007, and the fact that we are still operating these routes, suggest they are doing okay. Two factors work for us. First is the immigration to Singapore and Malaysia from southern states of India, especially Tamil Nadu and Kerala, which leads to a natural demand for the family driven traffic, and the needs of travelers from these cities to connect to the world which we provide from our Singapore hub. [Editor's note: Singapore Airlines is a handful of carriers belonging to the "six continents club" i.e. offering flights to all six populated continents of the world].

Q. How are the LCCs like AirAsia, IndiGo and Tiger Airways competing with you in India? We have seen a lot of churn with AirAsia withdrawing from many stations?

Devesh, you are very knowledgeable about the industry, and you know Singapore is the epicentre of low cost carriers in Asia. These are purely my own thinking. There are two reasons why low cost carriers have done so well at Singapore.

First, we have a very liberal, business friendly attitude and policies in Singapore. JetStar Asia is very big in Singapore, and even though it is 51% owned by a Singapore business house, it is effectively run by Qantas who owns 49%. So, from about 2003, when LCCs started operating in Singapore, their traffic share has gone from single digits to over 26% today on a base of about 45 million passengers annually.

Secondly, Singapore is a strong yielding market. Our strong economy and strong currency, it allows LCCs to price lower than full service carriers, but yet make their operations viable.

India is a challenging market for anyone, but especially for low cost carriers. Indian LCCs who dominate the domestic market, now enjoy operational efficiencies which makes it very hard for foreign low cost carriers to compete against them. Another aspect to consider is that India is a low yielding market compared to many destinations in the Gulf or ASEAN region. So foreign LCCs choose to deploy capacities to higher yielding markets, especially in these tough times.

Q. How much scope for expansion does Singapore Airlines see for more Indian service, whether that be capacity/frequency increases, or new routes?

Traffic rights still remain the constraining factor. If we get additional rights, I leave it to your educated guess to where we would like to expand. [Editor's note: It would be New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai]. Last year, in Chennai, we were forced to reduce our SilkAir services in favour of Tiger Airways. So we are facing a further dilution of traffic rights.

Q. Given that Tiger Airways is making a resurgence in India, as a knowledgeable industry professional, what are your thoughts about Scoot in India?

If you see Scoot is expanding in to those countries where we have open skies or very liberal third and fourth freedom rights. Australia, China, Thailand, Taiwan and Japan. I think Scoot is focussed on economic returns and since they have modified their 777-200's to 400+ seats, they are only looking at high volume routes. There are some cities in India which are high volume enough to sustain Scoot, but traffic rights are the constraint.

Q. Is there a scenario wherein Singapore Airlines would operate the A380 to India, and is it already allowed to?

We have ordered 19 A380's all of which have been delivered. They are deployed on long distance, high volume, high yielding routes. London Heathrow is THE airport the A380 was built for. As present we have no plans for bringing the A380 in India. If you observe, we operate the A380 to Hong Kong which is 3.5 hours, but then we operate seven flights a day one of which is the A380. I am not sure any destination in India will justify it, at least for now. For the future, I look forward to India growing and generating these levels of traffic.

Q. What has been the effect of the wing rib cracks on the A380?

When this matter showed up, there was some initial juggling of the schedules and I think the initial issues have been settled, but I am not an expert on this matter.

Q. Can you share any insight into the business/leisure breakdown of Singapore Airlines proper’s Indian operation (i.e how much of the traffic is business traffic and how much is leisure) ?

We do have a good mix of both, but I cannot share more information than that.

Q. Can you share what percentage of Singapore Airlines’ Indian traffic is origin and destination (O and D) and what percentage is connecting onwards through Singapore (6th freedom)?

Devesh you are already well informed. But for those who want greater detail, I recommend your readers see the CAG report. If you see the top ten airlines, most of them are in the 70%~80% range [connecting vs. O and D]. Lufthansa was around 87%. Clearly these airlines are carrying Indian passengers to the world not to their countries. Singapore Airlines was one of the lowest with a very healthy mix of about 50% passengers flying to Singapore and 50% going beyond. Which is not surprising considering the historical ethnic links and the over 300,000 Indian permanent residents in Singapore, and 900,000 visitors from India in Singapore. Unfortunately we get clubbed with the other airlines and our traffic rights are constrained.

Q. What does SQ/MI look forward to, from the Indian government, in terms of aviation policy? What in your opinion should be some initiatives the Indian government must take in the civil aviation sector? Comments on Indian airports, charges, facilities? What does SQ/MI look to from airports in the future? In current stations? In future stations?

To be fair to the airport operators, they moved from the old airports terminals to these spanking new facilities. This costs a lot of money, and we recognise someone has to pay for it. Our issue is how the payment burden is structured. To have such a huge increase, implemented all in one go, and in some cases, almost retrospectively, is not the way business should be done. As an example, at Delhi, just the passenger fee increases represents a double-digit percentage increase in total fare outgo by the passenger. Even the increases on landing and parking charges for us is over seven digits and we operate only two flights a day. It is not fair.

As a comparison, Singapore Changi airport, after many many years, is increasing the passenger fee by S$6. This is effective April 1, 2013, and this increase was announced two months ago, giving the airlines a lead time of over six months, and is valid only on tickets sold after November 1, 2012. Indian airports need to do fare increases in an orderly, planned and gradual manner, giving all the stake-holders time to adjust and to enable passengers to make their ticket purchases with their eyes wide open on the total costs. The suddenness and quantum of the increase is having its impact on marginal airlines.

I have been in India now for 22 months and I have seen 17 airports. I must admit, I am very impressed by some of the new airport terminals coming up. For example Chandigarh, Amritsar, or Vizag. We recognise there is a cost to be paid for these new terminals, what industry needs is for the power that is, to recognise that we all want better facilities, but we all need to find better ways of managing costs and distributing them in a fair and equitable manner.

One fundamental issue that has come up from the Delhi airport saga, is that, while PPP [Public Private Partnership] is good, but if you have AAI taking such a large chunk of the revenue collected, as its share, makes the job very challenging for the operator, and is a key reason why charges have gone up by some much.

Thank you Mr. Toh. Its been a pleasure.

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MAP: 8 Air India flights cannot even cover their cost of fuel

According to a report from the Press Trust of India (PTI), Indian civil aviation minister Vyalar Ravi revealed before the Rajya Sabha today that Air India's estimated loss for FY 2010-2011 was Rs. 6,994 Crore, down sharply from the Rs. 5552.55 Crore loss posted in FY 2009-2010.

Ravi also said that, "Based on April-September, 2011 route wise profitability, two routes out of 175 services meet total cost viz Kolkata-Yangon (vice versa) and Kolkata-Kathmandu (and vice versa)."

He further related that, "Based on April-September, 2011 out of 175 services [by Air India], 8 services (are) not meeting fuel cost, 109 services(are) meeting fuel cost but not meeting cash cost, 56 services (are) meeting cash cost but not meeting total cost and two services meeting total cost,"

***Note the traditionally accepted difference between cash cost and total cost for airlines is that total costs include aircraft financing costs and aircraft lease payments, which are not included in cash costs.

An earlier report in the Times of India had confirmed those figures for the routes and also contained the following caveat: "90% of the losses in these six months [April-September] came from international routes. AI lost Rs 791 crore on routes in that time, of which only Rs 57 crore was due to domestic flights and the rest on foreign flights. The entire network planning needs a relook and urgently to cover the revenue-expenditure gap."

That report also listed Delhi-Tokyo-Delhi as the only profitable flight in Air India's network, a route not mentioned by Vyalar at the Rajya Sabha.

8 Air India flights not making fuel cost

Bangalore Aviation has obtained the following list of the 8 Air India flights that currently do not generate enough revenue to even cover their fuel costs. One of these routes was already revealed in our post about Air India's London Heathrow slots: Amritsar-Delhi-London Heathrow.

• Amritsar-Delhi-London Heathrow
• Amritsar-Delhi-Toronto,
• Delhi-Dubai (AI 947)
• Ahmedabad-Mumbai (AI653)
• Delhi-Chennai (AIC 437)
• Chennai-Delhi (AIC 438)
• Delhi-Gwalior-Mumbai-Gwalior-Delhi (AI 421/422)
• Mumbai-Delhi (2x: AI 623 and AI 624),
• Mumbai-Ahmedabad (AI 643)
• Delhi-Mumbai (AI688)
• Ahmedabad-Mumbai (AI 614)

In all, 15 of Air India's flights don't make their fuel costs: the map below shows these routes in red, as well as Air India's profitable flights in green.



*Click map for larger view


Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper : copyright © Karl L. Swartz.

As the map shows, Air India's Delhi operation clearly faces a lot of trouble. Back in 2009, the carrier had shifted towards an intercontinental hub at Delhi's T3. Yet Air India is today unable to even cover its fuel costs on 7 different sectors from Delhi! Despite having a monopoly on nonstop flights from India to Toronto, Air India appears to be bumbling in its attempt to serve this large market of Indian nationals. It's time that Air India takes a good hard look at just how viable its international flights from New Delhi are, and whether it really makes sense for Air India to be operating widebody aircraft on domestic "tag" sectors for international routes (i.e. the Amritsar-Delhi segment of Amritsar-Delhi-Toronto).

At any other airline, routes whose revenues did not cover their fuel cost would have been dropped almost automatically; but at Air India; these routes will continue to be operated into the foreseeable future.

In the coming days, we will be analyzing Air India's financial results for FY 10-11 (and hopefully their annual report with its management commentary as well).

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Air India selling a London-Heathrow slot is a smart move.

Yesterday, Air India chief executive Rohit Nandan announced that Air India would be withdrawing one of its two daily Delhi-London-Heathrow flights from February 2012 and auctioning off the slots. Currently, Air India competes on the sector with Kingfisher, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, and Jet Airways; all of whom offer more consistent products and command higher fares than Air India.

The Delhi-London market is over-supplied and hyper-competitive; so this capacity cut actually is a very sensible move. In fact, Bangalore Aviation has learned that revenues generated on the Amritsar-Delhi-London segment (AI 115) do not even cover the cost of fuel for the flight (performed on Boeing 777s). While most of Air India's flights are unprofitable, AI 115 reaches a special level of incompetence because the revenue it receives cannot cover 60% of the cost of the flight!

Furthermore, Air India's well timed Heathrow slot is a highly coveted asset amongst world carriers. Numerous airlines such as Air China, Vietnam Airlines, and Korean Air have been forced to shift their London expansions to the less convenient Gatwick Airport. These companies would likely pay princely sums for Air India's peak-hour slot; similar slots have sold for as much as US $58 million (Rs. 303.5 crore). Thus Air India's slot auction would serve two purposes; raise at least Rs. 100 crore for a cash-strapped airline, and terminate a highly unprofitable route; one of the few solid business moves Air India has performed in the last year.

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bmi first to commence Amritsar London Heathrow direct service

bmi, British Midland International, Heathrow’s second largest airline, and a member of the Star Alliance will commence a thrice a week service between Amritsar and London Heathrow starting on 14 October 2011.

bmi Airbus A330-242 G-WWBB. Photo copyright Devesh Agarwal.

Flights will operate to London Heathrow via Almaty in Kazakhstan. bmi will be the only airline to offer a direct route from Amritsar to the United Kingdom which has a very large Punjabi diaspora. Services will be operated on an Airbus A330 aircraft and will offer a full service Business Class and Economy cabin. The aircraft offers 36 Business and 196 Economy seats.

BD992 will depart Amritsar 04:10, arrive Almaty 07:45; depart Almaty 08:45, arrive London Heathrow 10:50 on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays

BD991 will depart Heathrow 09:55, arrive Almaty 23.20; depart Almaty 00.10+1, arrive Amritsar 02.45+1 on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays

Business Class customers get a 60” seat pitch and seat recline of 50 degrees, electronic seat controls, in-seat power, a 15” personal video screen and comfortable noise cancelling headphones. Economy passengers get a 32” seat pitch with a recline of six degrees and a personal 15” seat back video screen.

bmi is offering promotional fares starting at Rs. 39,428 including taxes. The bmi India call centre is at 1 800 209 8070.

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Qatar Airways advances launch of services to Amritsar and Goa

To capitalise on the peak traffic, Qatar Airways is advancing it's commencement of scheduled flights to Amritsar on October 11 ahead of Diwali (Deepavali).

Similarly, it will commence scheduled flights to the beach destination of Goa on October 25, to capitalise on the inbound winter holiday traffic. Goa is a popular retreat, particularly among European holidaymakers

Both routes will be operated four-times-per-week non-stop from the airline’s hub in Doha, in the Emirate of Qatar using a two-class Airbus A320 configured with 12 seats in Business and 132 seats in Economy.

Doha – Amritsar schedules effective 11 October 2009
QR298 departs Doha at 21:40 arrives Amritsar at 03:55 the next morning
Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays, Sundays
QR299 departs Amritsar at 04:55 arrives Doha at 06:15
Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays

Doha – Goa schedules effective 25 October 2009
QR224 departs Doha at 21:25 arrives Goa Dabolim at 03:30 the next morning
Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays
QR225 depart Goa Dabolim at 04:30 arrive Doha at 06:10
Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, Sundays

Qatar Airways has done some very smart scheduling and will offer quick connections to its passengers to and from Europe, North America, Africa and the Middle East.

Qatar Airways currently operates daily flights between Doha and eight destinations India – Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Trivandrum, Cochin and Kozhikode. The addition of Amritsar and Goa will take the flights tally up to 64 flights a week.

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Qatar Airways to commence services to Goa Amritsar Sydney Melbourne in aggressive expansion

Qatar Airways unveiled an aggressive expansion plan today, with plans to expand operations to India and Europe, and launch new flights into Australia from the start of the Northern Winter 2009 schedules.

Over the next nine months Qatar Airways will commence flights from Doha to Goa and Amritsar, taking their count to 11 destinations in India, Sydney and Melbourne in Australia, and two European cities which have not yet been announced.



Qatar Airways has a fleet of 68 aircraft out of which there are eight Boeing 777's; six Boeing 777-300ERs (extended range) and two February delivered Boeing 777-200LRs (long range). Qatar Airways is deploying the latter aircraft on its Doha-Houston service due to commence on March 30th. At close to 17 hours, it will be one of the longest non-stop flights in the world.

Qatar Airways Business Class seats

The Australian services will require the same Boeing 777-200LRs which will be joining the fleet during this year.

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Singapore Airlines to park 17 aircraft, announces massive global capacity cuts, India services hit hard

Singapore Airlines (SIA) on the most profitable airlines in the world, announced today further route adjustments as part of the 11 per cent reduction of capacity from April 2009 to March 2010.

While Bangalore remains unaffected, for now, most other gateways of New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad have already been or are being affected by this latest announcement.

I cannot help but compare the withdrawal of services by most international carriers to the massive ramp-up by Emirates and other middle-east airlines in India.

When I visited the airport yesterday, during discussions with various friends, I was informed that the two of the three Emirates flights were going full, and the third was also respectable.

A number of changes have already been announced and some effected, including the withdrawal of service to Amritsar (from Feb 09) and Vancouver (from Apr 09), lower frequency of flights to India, as well as a cutback on the non-stop flights between Singapore and the USA.

A whopping 17 aircraft will be decommissioned from the operating fleet, up from an earlier forecast of four aircraft to be phased out.

The new changes shown below will be in effect from March 29 to October 24, unless specified otherwise:

Europe

For the London route, one of the three daily flights will be replaced with a B777-300ER plane from end-March.

The change in aircraft from the B747-400 will result in a seat count reduction of 97, a minus 7.5 per cent difference a day.

Flights to Manchester will be at three times weekly from May, down from the present five times weekly.

Australia

The frequency of service to Sydney will be reduced from four to three times daily till July.

North Asia

Services to Seoul will be reduced to twice-daily, from its already-reduced schedule of 17 times weekly. One flight will continue on to San Francisco.

Japan, the Singapore-Bangkok-Tokyo service will reduce from six to five flights per week.

China, flights to Beijing will decrease from 21 to 17 weekly. Guangzhou and Nanjing services will reduce to five and two per week respectively.

Flights to Hong Kong will be reduced from a weekly 42 to 35.

West Asia

Aside from already announced changes affecting Indian gateways (see details below), Colombo and Male will each be served by five flights per week, down from seven.

Southeast Asia

In the region, the Jakarta route will see a reduction from 56 to 49 a week, while Bangkok flights will be cut from 41 to 33 per week.

Other routes, such as Brisbane, Perth, Fukuoka, Nagoya and Rome will now be operated with variable frequencies depending on the season.

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Flights to India

Hyderabad-Singapore services, SQ439 and SQ438, will be reduced from four to three times weekly, with the suspension of the Saturday service from February 21.

SQ405 and SQ406, between New Delhi and Singapore, will be reduced from a six times weekly service, to five times weekly service. Changes will apply from March 10 to 24, as flights on Tuesdays during that period will be suspended.

For Mumbai and Singapore, services SQ421 and SQ422 will be progressively reduced from five to four times weekly services, starting February 27. Flights on Fridays will be suspended.

Morning flights to Chennai will be cut.

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Singapore Airlines reduces service to Bangalore, Chennai, drops Amritsar

At one time, Singapore Airlines SQ was the most dominant international airline in Bangalore, operating 12 flights a week. A daily night flight and a morning flight 5 days a week.

No more. The new title holder is Emirates operating as many as 3 flights a day.

Citing diminishing demand, from October 26, 2008 onwards, SQ has discontinued the 5 a week morning flights, and will offer only a daily night flight.

Similar reductions in service have been made for Chennai. Singapore Airlines will stop its services to Amritsar from February 4, 2009.

These are just some of the reductions Singapore airlines is making at a global level. Flights from Singapore to Penang, Ho Chi Minh City, Osaka, Seoul, Cape Town are also facing reductions. Flights to the Middle East are being increased. For more information read their press release.

International flights are more valuable for BIAL the operators of Bengaluru International Airport. Each international flight brings in revenue greater than 5 domestic flights, not to mention revenues to the duty free shops and other retail outlets at the airport. With the loss of domestic flights, BIAL can ill afford to loose international flights as well.

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