royroy wrote:

Hi Guys

any new routes for 9W in the planning? Do they have any further widebody orders pending?

cheers

binayak wrote:

royroy wrote:

Hi Guys

any new routes for 9W in the planning? Do they have any further widebody orders pending?

cheers

As of now they might be planning to re enter USA once navi mumbai airport becomes operational.
They have 10 B789s to be delivered by 2019 and navi mumbai will be operational in 2020.
I would love to see them in the US again

binayak wrote:

Wow Air India is finally starting DEL-LAX.
However I think that a Hollywood Bollywood route might have been better.
anyone would like to agree with me?

royroy wrote:

binayak wrote:

royroy wrote:

Hi Guys

any new routes for 9W in the planning? Do they have any further widebody orders pending?

cheers

As of now they might be planning to re enter USA once navi mumbai airport becomes operational.
They have 10 B789s to be delivered by 2019 and navi mumbai will be operational in 2020.
I would love to see them in the US again

great thanks for the info, I'm quite surprised they don't fly the widebodies to DXB or AUH

hohd wrote:

binayak wrote:

Wow Air India is finally starting DEL-LAX.
However I think that a Hollywood Bollywood route might have been better.
anyone would like to agree with me?

Not sure about DEL-LAX route. With the oil prices rising again, this ULH flight (the longest for AI) may not be profitable. SF is doing well and they should make it daily and perhaps think out of the box to bring passengers from LAX to SFO for connections, not just UA anyone (DL, AA, AS).

And BOM-LAX has even less traffic potential than DEL, where both O & D and connecting traffic would be higher.

qf789 wrote:

Link to previous thread

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1361923&p=20078737#p20078737

dtw2hyd wrote:

Here are rough financials in a year. Anyone with elementary math skills can see there will be no savings to Indian Taxpayer.

1) Revenue - $3B
2) Operational Expenses - $2.3B
3) AV related debt service cost - $200M (on $3B AV related debt)
4) Working Capital debt Servicing cost - $800M (on $6.5B WC related debt)
5) Bailout - $300M (on average)
6) Non-performing real estate assets ($2B or more)

1,2 &3 go to Tatas giving instant profit of $500M/year
4,5 will be saddled with taxpayers sinking additional $600M/year without any revenue
6 At worst, in a panic, Modi Jaitly may giveaway residential real estate to employees (or) at best they will continue to be non-performing assets on GoI books.

What every bureaucrat and politician including all committees right now doing is to leave breadcrumbs suggesting not to do it, but publicly say privatization is the way to go. When this becomes a scam after the sale it will be solely on Modi. NITI Ayoog is not a legitimate constitutional entity, just a think tank, hence no responsibility.

sand26391 wrote:

BLR Pax traffic for calendar year 2017= 25,048,302.
BLR Dec 2017 pax= 2,501,412. Breakup= 2,126,188(DOM)+ 375,224(INTL)
So 1 more Indian airport enters the 25 million pax category.

binayak wrote:

sand26391 wrote:

BLR Pax traffic for calendar year 2017= 25,048,302.
BLR Dec 2017 pax= 2,501,412. Breakup= 2,126,188(DOM)+ 375,224(INTL)
So 1 more Indian airport enters the 25 million pax category.

It will be nice if any Indian airline hubs at BLR. Jet airways has shown interest in that. After Delhi and Mumbai, Bangalore has consistently been third busiest in India. It's high time that we're letting ME3 flood the market

CaliguyNYC wrote:

Huh AI bleeds every year and keeps ADDING debt. If the GOI sells: (1) the bleeding stops, (2) debt related to the airplanes is transferred and the price paid for AI will write down some of the remaining debt accumulated (you forgot that in your response above) - the remaining debt the GOI will eat, (3) the new buyer will improve AI service and help indian aviation grow. Why is this so complicated? I mean I never thought I would see so many posts where people are saying the GOI should stay in the aviation business. They need to get out. And no AI employees should not get one more chance to loot the airline under an autonomy scheme And no it should not be sold to QR or any other foreign party just wanting to bleed Indian aviation. Finally your post seems clouded by your opinion of Modi. If AI is sold to Tatas, Indigo, SpiceJet and the winner wins because they are friends of Modi, I could care less. It needs to go to a reputable Indian company and India is far from the perfect place when it comes to sales of govt assets - hell I would bet 90% of govt assets sales around the world go to “friends”. Btw there is no indication that Tatas or Indigo are going anything illegal wrt to the AI sale nor is there any evidence that Modi is either.

royroy wrote:

binayak wrote:

sand26391 wrote:

BLR Pax traffic for calendar year 2017= 25,048,302.
BLR Dec 2017 pax= 2,501,412. Breakup= 2,126,188(DOM)+ 375,224(INTL)
So 1 more Indian airport enters the 25 million pax category.

It will be nice if any Indian airline hubs at BLR. Jet airways has shown interest in that. After Delhi and Mumbai, Bangalore has consistently been third busiest in India. It's high time that we're letting ME3 flood the market

great stats, didn't 9W flirt with the idea of a direct BLR but opted for a 3rd BOM instead? sounds like a BLR hub may not be too far away

dtw2hyd wrote:

CaliguyNYC wrote:

Huh AI bleeds every year and keeps ADDING debt. If the GOI sells: (1) the bleeding stops, (2) debt related to the airplanes is transferred and the price paid for AI will write down some of the remaining debt accumulated (you forgot that in your response above) - the remaining debt the GOI will eat, (3) the new buyer will improve AI service and help indian aviation grow. Why is this so complicated? I mean I never thought I would see so many posts where people are saying the GOI should stay in the aviation business. They need to get out. And no AI employees should not get one more chance to loot the airline under an autonomy scheme And no it should not be sold to QR or any other foreign party just wanting to bleed Indian aviation. Finally your post seems clouded by your opinion of Modi. If AI is sold to Tatas, Indigo, SpiceJet and the winner wins because they are friends of Modi, I could care less. It needs to go to a reputable Indian company and India is far from the perfect place when it comes to sales of govt assets - hell I would bet 90% of govt assets sales around the world go to “friends”. Btw there is no indication that Tatas or Indigo are going anything illegal wrt to the AI sale nor is there any evidence that Modi is either.

GoI is the reason AI adding more debt, not AI. Since privatization was announced AI added $1.5B new debt. $580M just for VVIP Planes.

Explain how is GoI going to eat the debt? This debt is held by Indian government-owned banks and interest is an important component for their survival. Even if GoI pays off Bank of India and others in one budget, they will go down because its annual revenue will be cut off. AI is the only good customer for them.

Why is the nostalgia or nationalistic view when this should be a business decision on behalf of taxpayers of a developing country.

Financially, QR is the best option, Indigo exhibited their ability to run an airline. Indigo gave EoI second day, AI(Int) should have been with Indigo by now.

But Ambani got Rafael (snatched from HAL), SpiceJet got one bailout and future seaplane venture, so Tatas are next in quid-pro-quo pecking order.

There is a dedicated AI privatization 2018 thread, we can continue this discussion on that thread.

royroy wrote:

binayak wrote:

sand26391 wrote:

BLR Pax traffic for calendar year 2017= 25,048,302.
BLR Dec 2017 pax= 2,501,412. Breakup= 2,126,188(DOM)+ 375,224(INTL)
So 1 more Indian airport enters the 25 million pax category.

It will be nice if any Indian airline hubs at BLR. Jet airways has shown interest in that. After Delhi and Mumbai, Bangalore has consistently been third busiest in India. It's high time that we're letting ME3 flood the market

great stats, didn't 9W flirt with the idea of a direct BLR but opted for a 3rd BOM instead? sounds like a BLR hub may not be too far away

binayak wrote:

...
I think Indigo should not buy AI. They already have a 41% percent domestic market share and increasing it would lead to unhealthy competition. It will be good for vistara if tata takes over AI. They are an emergent airline with excellent services.

dtw2hyd wrote:

binayak wrote:

...
I think Indigo should not buy AI. They already have a 41% percent domestic market share and increasing it would lead to unhealthy competition. It will be good for vistara if tata takes over AI. They are an emergent airline with excellent services.

Or Vistara can merge with Jet Airways and AirAsia(India) with Indigo/SpiceJet and Tatas can exit Indian aviation one more time.

Vistara's CEO is from SIA. So what is stopping from having an impeccable growth even after 3 years?

All the conditions(money, management talent, and motive) TATA-SIA promise to bring to AI, are already present, haven't shown any results.

sand26391 wrote:

9W has stopped booking on BLR-CMB route, IndiGo effect? Also apparently the 6E BLR-SIN flight is doing quiet well. Had ~80% occupancy yesterday...

sand26391 wrote:

^^Sorry you need to check again, frm FEB 1st the BLR-CMB is cancelled.
Never said 6E is the reason for 9w closure, I said maybe or perhaps the reason. It could be low yield or PLF.
Bookings wer closed wen i check in DEC when 6E didnt even announce CMB station.
IMO the timings of the 9W flight was way off.. even if they wanted to connect the CMB pax via BLR to AMS and beyond

Domestic air traffic surged 17.4 per cent to cross the 100-million mark in 2017, a first for Indian skies.
...
Last month, airlines flew 11.2 million passengers, 17.8 per cent more than the same period in 2016. The load factor in 2017 was 86.1 per cent as against 83.9 per cent in 2016.

The ministry did not see any rationale behind allowing more seats on the India-Dubai route "for now", the official said. India and Dubai allow airlines from each side to operate 65,000 seats per week, a quota that has been exhausted. While Dubai had sought an increase of 50,000 seats, Indian authorities had sought preferential treatment in slot allocation for Indian carriers at Dubai airport.

The pilots' flying privileges have been withdrawn for leaving the cockpit unattended and thereby jeopardising flight safety, a senior Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)official said today.

During the suspension period, the two pilots will not be eligible to fly with any airlines.

unrave wrote:

A note of interest is that IndiGo carried as may passengers in 2017 as the entire industry in 2009.

dtw2hyd wrote:

It appears AI's new 77W VT-ALV has same business class seats as their 787s. Ferried yesterday to DEL.

Did they remove the first class?

binayak wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

It appears AI's new 77W VT-ALV has same business class seats as their 787s. Ferried yesterday to DEL.

Did they remove the first class?

According to seat guru , Air India's 77W has one row( four first class seats) unlike their 77L having 8 of them. If they plan to deploy the plane to USA routes, they need to be careful regarding weight. I would have liked if they had configured the business class 1-2-1 like 9W.

devmapper wrote:

binayak wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

It appears AI's new 77W VT-ALV has same business class seats as their 787s. Ferried yesterday to DEL.

Did they remove the first class?

According to seat guru , Air India's 77W has one row( four first class seats) unlike their 77L having 8 of them. If they plan to deploy the plane to USA routes, they need to be careful regarding weight. I would have liked if they had configured the business class 1-2-1 like 9W.

AI 788s have 2-2-2 J class seating which is perhaps better than the 2-3-2 J class on the 777s. India remains a price-conscious market and a luxurious J class product will probably lose money, which AI cannot afford to do now.

Removing F would be the correct step for AI. I think AI 777 aircraft desperately need an interior refresh, especially since TRAI allowed WiFi on flights in Indian airspace.

devmapper wrote:

Why are all the Indian Full Service Carriers so tardy? https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/bus ... 701595.cms

blrsea wrote:

Looks like the Dubai bilaterals increase is stuck. However, the PM is supposed to visit UAE later this year, and I think it will be resolved by then.

vadodara wrote:

No easy solutions for BOM. Perhaps, expanding Pune might be a better arrangement. Atleast some of the IT traffic plus from the industrial belt can avoid BOM altogether. We shall see what happens post AI privatization, if that happens. I am sure the private player will take a hard look at the assets and operations and do some serious house-cleaning. The Air India colonies for one may go to the highest bidder.

CaliguyNYC wrote:

And India needs more seats to DXB why?

So again, what does Indian gain again?

unrave wrote:

CaliguyNYC wrote:

And India needs more seats to DXB why?

For starters, even Indian carriers have exhausted their quota and would want more bilateral seats to expand.

So again, what does Indian gain again?

This is frankly a very narrow minded view of things. Whether we like it or not UAE is very important to India for trade, investments, defence and employment.

unrave wrote:

CaliguyNYC wrote:

And India needs more seats to DXB why?

For starters, even Indian carriers have exhausted their quota and would want more bilateral seats to expand.

So again, what does Indian gain again?

This is frankly a very narrow minded view of things. Whether we like it or not UAE is very important to India for trade, investments, defence and employment.