Irehdna wrote:

Keep in mind too that many of these US flights are used by large amount of elderly (wheelchair) population, so it is more difficult to transfer them than a general passenger.

Yes, that's true. I know AI is popular amongst the older generation. But if AI utilizes their ground crew well and deploys more staff for such pax ( wheelchair/elderly) , I see no reason for them to fly an expensive 777 on short haul routes. They are definitely not profitable on short legs, especially with AI's cost structure. Also to mention waste of WB crew.

Well well well.... seems like AirAsia India is pulling out of SURAT "INTERNATIONAL" AIRPORT wef 14JAN 2019 as one cannot book BLR-STV flights on the website! All that fan fare, celebrations, hartal, promotions, spamming etc etc didn't help. Inb4 they(WWWAS) start writing articles on ToI(STV edition) blaming every1 in the world.
EDIT: The flight is cancelled wef 16JAN

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Introducing our 24th domestic destination, Kannur with return flights from Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.
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sand26391 wrote:

Well well well.... seems like AirAsia India is pulling out of SURAT "INTERNATIONAL" AIRPORT wef 14JAN 2019 as one cannot book BLR-STV flights on the website! All that fan fare, celebrations, hartal, promotions, spamming etc etc didn't help. Inb4 they(WWWAS) start writing articles on ToI(STV edition) blaming every1 in the world.
EDIT: The flight is cancelled wef 16JAN

I just checked their FB page. They don't seem to have gotten wind of this development. Currently they are displeased with Go Air for flying to CNN before STV.

Irehdna wrote:

FWIW AI is using the high MTOW 77W (777-333), for BOM-JFK. Today's flight was on VT-ALX and it seems that the airline has assigned this aircraft to the route for the next couple days too.

Wheels up to touch down today was 16 hours flat, or approximately 1 hour longer than even DEL-SFO. There was talk on some Twitter threads that the plane may have to refuel due to the distance.

This route is actually longer (by Great Circle) than DEL-SFO by about 160km, even though it would intuitively make sense that DEL-SFO is significantly longer. BOM-JFK also has the disadvantage of facing headwinds nearly the entire way to JFK, as the GC route is not as polar as the DEL routes.
.

AI has been operating BOM-EWR on the 77W for about 5 years, I am certain that there was never a fuel stop made except once/twice in FRA/VIE during rainy season in BOM when AI needed to clear backlog of bags left behind due to load penalty. That being said, AI has been on this exact route from BOM for a long time on the old 77Ws, so no surprises here.

AFAIK all 77Ws are capable of higher MTOW, just need paperwork and payment to GE/Boeing. The only advantage with VT-ALX is clean cabins, which will be a short-term advantage before interiors get trashed by pax.

Any idea what happened to the Maharaja Business Class which was announced with such fanfare?

dtw2hyd wrote:

AFAIK all 77Ws are capable of higher MTOW, just need paperwork and payment to GE/Boeing. The only advantage with VT-ALX is clean cabins, which will be a short-term advantage before interiors get trashed by pax.

Any idea what happened to the Maharaja Business Class which was announced with such fanfare?

That's nothing but lie flat business class instead of angle flat in the 777s . Rest everything remains the same including 2-3-2 layout. The given aircraft VT ALX contains the same.

unrave wrote:

IndiGo launches direct lights from HYD and VNS to BKK wef 15DEC18 on a HYD-BKK-VNS-BKK-HYD rotation. With these, IndiGo flies to BKK from 5 Indian airports.

This rotation has been changed and HYD-BKK is no longer bookable. Instead the recently discontinued 2nd daily CCU-VNS has been restored.

dtw2hyd wrote:

AFAIK all 77Ws are capable of higher MTOW, just need paperwork and payment to GE/Boeing. The only advantage with VT-ALX is clean cabins, which will be a short-term advantage before interiors get trashed by pax.

Any idea what happened to the Maharaja Business Class which was announced with such fanfare?

Yeah those cabins are probably very trashed already, not to mention there was a bed bug incident a couple months back involving this plane.

binayak wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

Any idea what happened to the Maharaja Business Class which was announced with such fanfare?

That's nothing but lie flat business class instead of angle flat in the 777s . Rest everything remains the same including 2-3-2 layout. The given aircraft VT ALX contains the same.

Did AI refit all 77Ws and 77Ls with lie-flat J?

dtw2hyd wrote:

binayak wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

Any idea what happened to the Maharaja Business Class which was announced with such fanfare?

That's nothing but lie flat business class instead of angle flat in the 777s . Rest everything remains the same including 2-3-2 layout. The given aircraft VT ALX contains the same.

Did AI refit all 77Ws and 77Ls with lie-flat J?

No not all of them . Some of the 77Ws have been refitted . Don't know about the 77Ls .

binayak wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

binayak wrote:

That's nothing but lie flat business class instead of angle flat in the 777s . Rest everything remains the same including 2-3-2 layout. The given aircraft VT ALX contains the same.

Did AI refit all 77Ws and 77Ls with lie-flat J?

No not all of them . Some of the 77Ws have been refitted . Don't know about the 77Ls .

Thank You. Do you know if they were fitted with a new seatback IFE? I may repent asking this question!!!

dtw2hyd wrote:

Thank You. Do you know if they were fitted with a new seatback IFE? I may repent asking this question!!!

Nope . IFE and its contents remains the same as it was in the old one . That's something AI should care for . They did make changes in the amenity kit and the bedding .
They could've at least made the config 2-2-2 like EK's new 77L J but after all its a "govt owned " AI !!

binayak wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

Thank You. Do you know if they were fitted with a new seatback IFE? I may repent asking this question!!!

Nope . IFE and its contents remains the same as it was in the old one . That's something AI should care for . They did make changes in the amenity kit and the bedding .
They could've at least made the config 2-2-2 like EK's new 77L J but after all its a "govt owned " AI !!

That is pure dumbness. Spent $50K on J seat and reinstalled old IFE seatback monitor. Not changing IFE streaming server equipment is understandable but they should have installed new seatback monitors which would reduce complaints from premium pax.

GoAir increases CNN-BLR to twice daily eff. 15th Dec

G8622 CNN 06:10 BLR 07:10

G8623 BLR 07:45 CNN 08:45

G8624 CNN 13:00 BLR 14:10

G8625 BLR 14:40 CNN 16:10

dtw2hyd wrote:

binayak wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

Thank You. Do you know if they were fitted with a new seatback IFE? I may repent asking this question!!!

Nope . IFE and its contents remains the same as it was in the old one . That's something AI should care for . They did make changes in the amenity kit and the bedding .
They could've at least made the config 2-2-2 like EK's new 77L J but after all its a "govt owned " AI !!

That is pure dumbness. Spent $50K on J seat and reinstalled old IFE seatback monitor. Not changing IFE streaming server equipment is understandable but they should have installed new seatback monitors which would reduce complaints from premium pax.

Nothing new either! AI has had a very poor record of IFE . It was sub par even during early 2000s in the 747s . As earlier said, AI was never and will never be allowed to make something innovative by GOI.

Slash787 wrote:

Can someone post pictures of the "New" Business class for Air India.

Livefromalounge had made a blog with pictures on the same but that couldn't be found in google.
Well it looks just like the 787 J class.

binayak wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

binayak wrote:

That's nothing but lie flat business class instead of angle flat in the 777s . Rest everything remains the same including 2-3-2 layout. The given aircraft VT ALX contains the same.

Did AI refit all 77Ws and 77Ls with lie-flat J?

No not all of them . Some of the 77Ws have been refitted . Don't know about the 77Ls .

I am pretty sure none of the 77L/W were refitted at all; they are still the original products. All 777 except VT-ALV/W/X are the 2007 angle product, the new 77W VT-ALV/W/X are the 2017 fully flat product, but still 2-3-2 in J.

From what I understand the Maharaja product is only a soft product improvement, like crew uniform and catering.

^^YIKES! They look TERRIBLE

+1. Yeah...that's just sad!

Kannur finally on the aviation map as CNN

First commercial and international flight CNN-AUH took off at 1005 hrs

DEL-CNN to land shortly as first domestic and commercial touchdown at CNN at 1115 hrs


Sent from my SM-J730GM using Tapatalk

SVJ77W wrote:

Kannur finally on the aviation map as CNN

First commercial and international flight CNN-AUH took off at 1005 hrs

DEL-CNN to land shortly as first domestic and commercial touchdown at CNN at 1115 hrs


Sent from my SM-J730GM using Tapatalk

Well done Kannur ! Finally their dreams full filled .

I'm sure Suratis must be burning in jealousy, that Kannur got a new airport, got new ops so soon thereafter, that too directly with the first commercial flight being an Int'l one.

That too they didn't have to beg and plead airlines to come there, airlines themselves all desperate to be there. Speaks a lot about Kerala and their progress. South India always shinning and is the hot spot of Indian Aviation.

avier wrote:

SVJ77W wrote:

Kannur finally on the aviation map as CNN

First commercial and international flight CNN-AUH took off at 1005 hrs

DEL-CNN to land shortly as first domestic and commercial touchdown at CNN at 1115 hrs


Sent from my SM-J730GM using Tapatalk

Well done Kannur ! Finally their dreams full filled .

I'm sure Suratis must be burning in jealousy, that Kannur got a new airport, got new ops so soon thereafter, that too directly with the first commercial flight being an Int'l one.

That too they didn't have to beg and plead airlines to come there, airlines themselves all desperate to be there. Speaks a lot about Kerala and their progress. South India always shinning and is the hot spot of Indian Aviation.

South India always shining and is the hot spot of Indian Aviation, you say. EXCEPT TAMIL NADU.

KA and Telangana have swanky airports serving their capitals. Kerala now has TWO private-public partnership airports, COK and CNN. However, TN has nothing that is remotely appealing to the eye. The international arrivals of MAA is the single best example. I believe the (AIA)DMK are to blame. I don't want to bring in politics, but they (and their Bangla counterparts the CPM and TMC) are to blame for their lack of vision and their apathy as regards airports.

P.S. I am happy that CNN is going to be a full-fledged domestic-cum-international airport, rather than an ME feeder airport like CCJ, and I hope the likes of Jazeera, Flynas, Air Arabia and SalamAir start service to this honestly well-thought-out and well-constructed airport.

VTCIE wrote:

South India always shining and is the hot spot of Indian Aviation, you say. EXCEPT TAMIL NADU.

KA and Telangana have swanky airports serving their capitals. Kerala now has TWO private-public partnership airports, COK and CNN. However, TN has nothing that is remotely appealing to the eye. The international arrivals of MAA is the single best example. I believe the (AIA)DMK are to blame. I don't want to bring in politics, but they (and their Bangla counterparts the CPM and TMC) are to blame for their lack of vision and their apathy as regards airports.

P.S. I am happy that CNN is going to be a full-fledged domestic-cum-international airport, rather than an ME feeder airport like CCJ, and I hope the likes of Jazeera, Flynas, Air Arabia and SalamAir start service to this honestly well-thought-out and well-constructed airport.

Oh yeah. I would actually further break that down specifically to issues at Chennai (MAA) being the root problem, rather than the whole Tamil Nadu. There has been a lot of activity recently at places like Madurai, Trichy, Coimbatore recently. Also the incentives that are being offered to operate there.
So it's more of a Chennai problem and their politics there.

I do hope Chennai and even Kolkata, take a leaf out of BLR/HYD/Kerala's book and see the economic benefits those well planned modern airports bring to those cities and their states.
The two cities (and their states) can adopt a more progressive communist mentality ( like Kerala) rather than the regressive kind they currently have.

GoAir today launched BLR-HKT & BLR-MLE. The city becomes only the 3rd city to have flights to HKT in India. (Also IndiGo will launch 6x weekly BLR-HKT wef 20DEC, so hence for the week beginning 20DEC BLR-HKT will be 9x weekly.)






Link- https://www.facebook.com/64030758266594 ... 557204824/

VTORD wrote:

+1. Yeah...that's just sad!

That is probably the most popular business class product among 787 operators. Royal Brunei, LOT, LATAM, China Southern, Hainan, Xiamen, Ethiopian, Kenyan, Oman, RJ to name a few.

BLR operationalises 9 CODE C & 1 CODE E aircraft stands to its Western Apron. Currently the Eastern apron(Near the end of Int'l gates) is undergoing expansion as part of T2 expansion project

avier wrote:

That too they didn't have to beg and plead airlines to come there, airlines themselves all desperate to be there. Speaks a lot about Kerala and their progress. South India always shinning and is the hot spot of Indian Aviation.

Kerala has one of the highest per capita emigrants to ME. So its no wonder that all airports in Kerala will have significant traffic to ME. That's the reason why there are no flights to Europe and limited flights to other non-ME destinations. Hence airlines rushing to start flights to ME from Kerala. Whether so many people moving out in search of job opportunities to other countries is a sign of progress or not is a topic for non-av forum though.

Slash787 wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

That is probably the most popular business class product among 787 operators. Royal Brunei, LOT, LATAM, China Southern, Hainan, Xiamen, Ethiopian, Kenyan, Oman, RJ to name a few.

Nope, Oman is way ahead and has one of the best business class

Nope. Here is a picture on Oman 788. That pic is on 789
https://www.airliners.net/photo/Oman-Ai ... er/4029137

Hainan business class seats on the 787 are a world apart from the sorry ones on AI

Now I think posting pictures of random airline's business class and comparing with AI's need to stop. It has been said multiple times before that AI's business product is out dated. And AI themselves never claimed their product to be "good ".
Had I been AI, I would've tried reverse herringbone as my nearest competitor has herringbone layout.

unrave wrote:

Hainan business class seats on the 787 are a world apart from the sorry ones on AI

Hainan airlines has 2-2-2 AI type J in 788s . The one you showed was of 789s

binayak wrote:

unrave wrote:

Hainan business class seats on the 787 are a world apart from the sorry ones on AI

Hainan airlines has 2-2-2 AI type J in 788s . The one you showed was of 789s

How does it matter? I'm comparing the latest 787 business products on the respective airlines

Exactly the same product as AI.

https://onemileatatime.com/review-haina ... class-787/

unrave wrote:

binayak wrote:

unrave wrote:

Hainan business class seats on the 787 are a world apart from the sorry ones on AI

Hainan airlines has 2-2-2 AI type J in 788s . The one you showed was of 789s

How does it matter? I'm comparing the latest 787 business products on the respective airlines

No use of that because entire A.net knows about AI's inferior product standards. I pointed out the same in my previous post.
dtw2hyd just meant that there are other airlines in the world flying this same out dated product.

dtw2hyd wrote:

VTORD wrote:

+1. Yeah...that's just sad!

That is probably the most popular business class product among 787 operators. Royal Brunei, LOT, LATAM, China Southern, Hainan, Xiamen, Ethiopian, Kenyan, Oman, RJ to name a few.

While I grant you I am not a fan of the AI style 788 J product, I have to say it is not universally hated. My mom just flew FRA-BOM on AI J. She loved the seats (and the service / food). Her actually asked why we didn’t book her in AI more! She doesn’t use IFE so no negative for her. What she liked was the fact the seats are so wide and spacious. She feels the normal seats like say Delta has on their 767 or A330 are very narrow and feel like a coffin (she also doesn’t love EY’s seats). Ai is open and wide. Now most people like the privacy and the cocoon feeling of the other type of seats. I am just passing on my mom’s view. She also said the plane was very clean.

blrsea wrote:

avier wrote:

That too they didn't have to beg and plead airlines to come there, airlines themselves all desperate to be there. Speaks a lot about Kerala and their progress. South India always shinning and is the hot spot of Indian Aviation.

Kerala has one of the highest per capita emigrants to ME. So its no wonder that all airports in Kerala will have significant traffic to ME. That's the reason why there are no flights to Europe and limited flights to other non-ME destinations. Hence airlines rushing to start flights to ME from Kerala. Whether so many people moving out in search of job opportunities to other countries is a sign of progress or not is a topic for non-av forum though.

Oh yeah. I never thought of it that way. They are more like what Guwahati is becoming now, everyone from East and North East migrating elsewhere, so a lot of demand for flights from NE to all over India.
Anyways, point was as long as their govt is progressive for development, it's a good sign.

IMO, nothing is worse than the herringbone seats of airlines like 9W and VS.
The windows are almost behind your head (which is a total shame on the 787s) and you're basically "splayed out in front of every person who walks down the aisle".

dtw2hyd wrote:

AFAIK all 77Ws are capable of higher MTOW, just need paperwork and payment to GE/Boeing. The only advantage with VT-ALX is clean cabins, which will be a short-term advantage before interiors get trashed by pax.

Any idea what happened to the Maharaja Business Class which was announced with such fanfare?

I highly doubt that its the pax that trash the interiors. I just flew AI's 777 for the first time from JFK to DEL and its seems doubtful that the clientele served on the US nonstops would go about trashing interiors. IMO its normal wear and tear that AI is not able to keep up with.

My seat didnt recline, overhead light didnt turn up and obviously IFE didnt work, only saving grace was that we landed way before time.
The FA said that IFE not working was the only complaint of passengers on these flights.

avier wrote:

That too they didn't have to beg and plead airlines to come there, airlines themselves all desperate to be there. Speaks a lot about Kerala and their progress. South India always shinning and is the hot spot of Indian Aviation.

Operating 4 international airports that are almost exclusively served by flights to labour camps in the Gulf is hardly a yardstick for progress though.

Kerala has built two airports now on the PPP model. COK has been a success and has been profitable for all its shareholders for a while now. Also note the split between domestic and international flyers in COK stats. Dissing the airports as receptacles for flights to labor camps also clearly misses the point of the kinds of migration that is happening both out of Kerala and into Kerala. There are significant High Net Worth Individuals of Keralite origin buying tickets on business and first when they fly to and fro from the Middle East. The people moving there are increasingly professionals, Doctors and IT folks. While in past decades, people used to travel back and forth once a year or once every two years, the increase in frequencies and reduction in average fares have allowed people to fly 3 to 4 times in a year to attend weddings and festivals. Successive Kerala governments, regardless of politics, have realized that aviation is an engine of growth.

unrave wrote:

avier wrote:

That too they didn't have to beg and plead airlines to come there, airlines themselves all desperate to be there. Speaks a lot about Kerala and their progress. South India always shinning and is the hot spot of Indian Aviation.

Operating 4 international airports that are almost exclusively served by flights to labour camps in the Gulf is hardly a yardstick for progress though.

Absolutely true. CCJ and TRV are just ME feeder airports. It is difficult to find a non-ME flight to CCJ/TRV. It is natural that CNN goes in that direction, but Hindon has proposed a CNN flight, so CNN may have more domestic flights than CCJ and TRV combined. COK is different because of 6E's big domestic expansion there. For a South airport (Government-owned) that is an actual beacon of progress, look at IXE, TRZ and VTZ.

If there is an international flight from a Kerala airport, it is almost guaranteed to be one of these ten: AUH, BAH, DMM, DOH, DXB, JED, KWI, MCT, RUH, SHJ. From TRZ and IXM, similarly, the preferred intl. destinations are CMB, KUL and SIN. There is very little otherwise. There is no word on MAA-MLE or MAA-HKT in the near future.

Vistara operated special flights between 7- 10th Dec from DEL/BOM - Udaipur. They were obviously operated to facilitate guest movements for the Ambani daughters wedding celebrations.

avier wrote:

Vistara operated special flights between 7- 10th Dec from DEL/BOM - Udaipur. They were obviously operated to facilitate guest movements for the Ambani daughters wedding celebrations.

Speaking of which, BOM has set a new record for no. of flights handled by a single runway airport in a day at 1007 on account of the chartered flight operations to Udaipur

Kerala-ME is not all unskilled labor, there are enough rich people to fill premium cabins of GCC carriers. Lot of Keralites would prefer AI mainline but settle for AIX.

unrave wrote:

avier wrote:

Vistara operated special flights between 7- 10th Dec from DEL/BOM - Udaipur. They were obviously operated to facilitate guest movements for the Ambani daughters wedding celebrations.

Speaking of which, BOM has set a new record for no. of flights handled by a single runway airport in a day at 1007 on account of the chartered flight operations to Udaipur

Yes, and that also includes special flights by 9W and SG. Not sure if other airlines participated in this. Also some were chartered and some as special flights by the airline themselves. All for the big lavish wedding.

200 charter flights flew in and out of Udaipur over 7-10 December. These crazy rich people huh!!

On the other hand, I bought USDINR puts today, and now with Urijit Patel resigning after market hours, I am on verge of bankruptcy.

anshabhi wrote:

On the other hand, I bought USDINR puts today, and now with Urijit Patel resigning after market hours, I am on verge of bankruptcy.

Why would you do that when oil prices are on the rise again?