Indigo, the 6-year old low-fare carrier, which became the largest Indian domestic airline, a very professional and cool one at that, and the only profitable Indian airline might be slipping up as well. It seems their dream run seems to be finally coming to an end. As per a newsreport published in the Economic Times today, Indigo has lost the plot. India’s civil aviation minister, in an address in the Indian Parliament, states that the airline made a nominal loss of Rs. 88 Crores ($15 million) in the period April 2011-March 2012. In the preceding periods of 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11, the airline made a profit of Rs. 18 Crores ($3 million), Rs. 447 Crores ($80 million), Rs. 603 Crores…
Yearly Archives
Yearly Archives for 2012.
Jet Airways brings in new Business class on their new Airbus 330-300s
Jet Airways, earlier this week took delivery the first of its 4 new Airbus 330-300s (VT-JWR) which are on order, and are scheduled to join the fleet over the coming months. Coming up next later this month is VT-JWS. The first two planes will replace Airbus 330-200s which are being returned to their lessors, and the next two will add to the capacity of Jet Airways on the international network, perhaps on their new routes out of Bangalore, or wherever else. The new A333s are a step-up on the A332s on capacity, and will contain 259 Y seats, and 34 J seats, as compared to 190 Y seats on the earlier A332s, and 30 J seats in the herringbone configuration.…
Club Carlson offers complimentary status to JetPrivilege members
Jet Airways, in a tie-up with Club Carlson, the loyalty program of the owner & operator of the Radisson, Radisson Blu, Park Inn, Country Inn & Park Plaza brands, has a new enrolment offer for Jet Airways’ JetPrivilege Members for fast track status with Radisson, valid upto 31 March 2013. For Platinum & Gold Members of the JetPrivilege Program, the status offered is Gold Elite, and for Silver & BluePlus members, the status offered is Silver Elite, and status will be valid upto February 28, 2014. While usually it takes 15 Nights/10 Stays per year to get the Silver Elite status and 35 Nights/20 Stays per year to get Gold Elite status, using these links, you can enrol for a…
India makes visa policies easier for tourists
A couple of years back, India made a big change to its visa policies for tourists for additional security measures. There was some abuse found of the tourist visa, with unscrupulous visitors making multiple trips. Policy was changed to not allow tourist visa holders back into the country within 2 months of making their last visit. Unfortunately, the policy did lead to a drop in tourist traffic to India, and now there is a rollback. Last week, India changed the policy to allow visitors to the country to travel on the same multiple entry tourist visa multiple times without a 2-month gap between their visits. Which means, if you wanted to make a landing in India and go around the…
Citibank PremierMiles revises lounge access benefits
I’ve been a big fan of the Citibank PremierMiles credit card, ever since it landed in my wallet almost a year back now. However, the product features have been changing and I’m not exactly impressed by all of them. Overnight, there is a reduction in the lounge access policy, which quietly underwent a change. A reader Gagan pointed this out to me in the comments, and got me to have a look. While the MasterCard version did not have too many lounges to start with, on the Visa network, there were a lot of lounges in India and outside India to go for. However, I cannot blame, but thank Citi for having keeping the lounge access alive. This is because,…
India–New York flights (Y) for 550$ on Skyteam
Skyteam airline Saudia has been offering, for the past few days, a Mumbai-New York JFK- Mumbai roundtrip fare on economy for ~550 – 600 Dollars. This fare is available for quite a few dates in 2013, all the way up to October 2013. This is clearly the cheapest flights to the USA could get. Saudia flies Mumbai – Jeddah on a Boeing 777-200 (in a 2-5-2 config) and onwards Jeddah – New York JFK on a Boeing 777-300ER (in a 3-4-3 config). As per Saudia’s website, Economy seats have a seat pitch of 34″, and everyone gets an amenity kit as well. There could be a 10-15 hour layover involved in Riyadh depending on the day you are flying. A…
10 bucks for a luxury weekend in Mumbai please!
Thanksgiving came and went, but not for everyone. This year, I am working with Passports with Purpose, the annual fund raiser of travel bloggers. Passports With Purpose was founded in 2008 as a way to build community among travel bloggers and to give back to the society. In 2009, Passports with Purpose blew past its initial goal (which was to raise $14,000 to build a school in Cambodia) raising nearly $30,000 to add improvements to the basic school. In 2010, with overwhelming support and assistance from the PwP raised $64,128, over 25% more than the original goal of $50,000 and built an entire village in India. Construction is now underway. In 2011, through partnerships with the participating bloggers, PwP raised…
Reminder 2: 3 days to Jet Airways ICICI Bank upto 5k bonus!
I know everyone is excited about the new Jet Airways American Express Credit Cards which were launched a couple of days back. I’ve got tons of mail and tweets and phone calls asking about the cards. I will get down to dissecting all the 3 cards for you folks soon. At this point of time, I wanted to remind you, that if you are looking at the ICICI Bank credit card in tie-up with Jet Airways, you should apply or call up for your card upgrade now, since the November 30, 2012 deadline is close for getting the extra bonus with the card. You could read all about the extra bonus offer here. Related Posts: Jet Airways ICICI Bank CC:…
Jet Airways on verge of strategic partnership with Etihad
In September, I had written about the possibility of Etihad investing in Jet Airways. Turns out I was not the only one who was thinking like that, even Jet & Etihad seem to be thinking on the same lines. As per Reuters, they have news from an insider Indian ministry of Civil Aviation that deal between Jet Airways and Etihad is almost a done deal, and will be at a substantial premium to the market price. Extracts from the news report filed: “The talks are on. This is more or less final. It may take around a month and half,” the government source told reporters, referring to the Jet-Etihad negotiations. “This deal is not just about investment but also technology…
Breaking: Jet Airways American Express Platinum card launched
The news I’ve been waiting for. Like you know, Jet Airways parted way with Citibank for their decade old co-branded credit card and tied up with three partners instead: HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and American Express. I’d talked about the imminent launch of this product last month. HDFC Bank went first with releasing their product, and ICICI Bank went next. These have been in the market for a while now. American Express seemed to take some time, since they had to first disengage with the Kingfisher co-branded credit card they already had in operation to launch the new product with Jet Airways co-branding. Anyways, all the hard work is behind us and the new credit card has now been launched.…
Reminder 1: Register for PremierMiles promotion before November 30
If you’ve been making your Citibank PremierMiles Credit Card work hard over the past couple of months in the festive season, I hope you are aware of the Double Your Miles promotion that has been in place since October 1. The top 2000 spenders this quarter get to double their miles earned on the credit card. Here are all the details you need from the earlier post I made on this. Here is a quick reminder, that the registration for the promotion closes on 30 November 2012, so, if you have not registered, you should do that now. If you have more than 1 Citibank PremierMiles credit cards, you will need to register each one individually for this promotion. Related…
