Jet, Indigo, Kingfisher and others worried on Air India Fare cut

Mumbai: National
carrier Air India's
move to lower fares by up to 20% on
certain routes since January this year
to prop up its falling market share is
making other airlines see red as they face the prospect of taking a hit on
their profits. Airlines are worried that the national
carrier's dash for market share has
come at a time when oil prices have
risen to record highs due to the Libyan
crisis, raising their operational costs as
much as 50% in some cases. " Air India is offering all their seats at
prices that are lying at the bottom of
the yield bucket. They are reducing
fares by as much as.`1,000 and
competing with us by dropping fares,
especially on the Delhi-Mumbai routes," said the CEO of a low-cost
airline who did not wish to be
identified. "A drop of .`100 in yield will
bleed airlines by .`3 crore." Despite having the largest fleet, Air
India was recently overtaken by low-
cost airline IndiGo in terms of market
share. The national carrier has a
market share of 15%. It has long
lagged behind Jet and Kingfisher , the two large sector airlines. Air India's
move has had some impact in
January-March 2011 quarter, say
analysts. "Air India has dropped fares in the last
quarter by 20%-30%. This forced
other airlines to follow suit. With fuel
costs up by more than 40%, this drop
in fares by Air India has become a
game changer for the fourth quarter of the last financial year," said Kapil
Kaul , CEO, (Indian sub-continent &
Middle East), CAPA. Air India defends the strategy by
saying that its market share has gone
up and it has become competitive.

Pilots win nothing, Air India Losses 150 crores

New Delhi: After 10
days of hard
bargaining, striking Air India (AI)
pilots patched up with the
government on Friday with the former
gaining hardly anything in the process but causing the bleeding national
carrier losses of more than Rs 150
crore and further denting its
reputation. With the pilots calling off
their strike, AI will resume domestic
services from midnight of Friday. The Indian Commercial Pilots
Association (ICPA) - which has as its
members 700 pilots belonging to the
former Indian Airlines - had declared a
strike from the midnight April 26-27. They were joined by another 200-odd
management pilots a day later,
crippling AI's domestic network. The AI management had sacked
seven pilots, suspended seven others
and derecognised the ICPA. So, after the 10-day face-off with the
government, all that the pilots got was
re-recognition of their association and
reinstatement of the sacked and
suspended pilots. The decision to call off the strike hasn't
gone down well with a section of ICPA
pilots and there was a clear split in its
ranks. "We are back to square one. The
government hasn't conceded an inch
and we, on the other hand, have lost
10 days' pay and an assurance of a
salary of 60-hours. What was the point
of doing all this?" a pilot asked. ICPA general secretary Rishabh Kapur
conceded that they hadn't got any
commitment on the allowances ICPA
had demanded. He said implementation of the report
of the justice (Retd) Dharmadhikari
Committee - which is looking into
issues of wage rationalisation and
level mapping - would be shared with
them by November.

Empire Aviation Group to begin operations in India

Dubai: Empire
Aviation Group
(EAG), a Dubai-based private aviation
specialist and operator of one of the
West Asian ' s largest managed fleets of business jets, has announced plans to
start operations in India, with the
opening of a new branch office in
Mumbai by mid-2011. The new branch — the company' s first operational base outside Dubai — will eventually offer the full range of
Empire Aviation Group services in the
subcontinent and will have an initial
focus on aircraft sales and
management. The announcement was timed to
coincide with the inaugural Kerala
Aircraft Static Display Show 2011 held
in Kozhikode where the company will
have an exhibit highlighting its range
of aviation services and featuring a Hawker 800XP business jet that EAG is
marketing on behalf of its owner. Mr Steve Hartley, Executive Director at
Empire Aviation Group, said this is the
right time to enter the Indian aviation
market, as private jet registrations
have continued to rise strongly over
the last three years. " Market reports suggest that there are around 130-140 private jets currently
based in the market, covering all the
major manufacturers.

Frankfinn Institute

After having established itself as the world' s number one airhostess training institute, Frankfinn Institute of
Airhostess Training is now eyeing
overseas markets and is in the midst of
freezing plans to foray into the Middle-
East.
While it already has an operation in Dubai, it is now eyeing other parts of
the Middle-East, where its Chairman, K
S Kohli, scents an immense potential
for its services. " We are the number one airhostess training institute. Now
we want to expand our footprint
globally," Kohli said. With this view, it has set up Frankfinn Institute of Air
Hostess Training FZ LLC and launched
its operations in Dubai. " Soon we propose to enter other Middle-East
markets, " he said. Frankfinn also has a presence in Mauritius and Hong Kong.
Frankfinn Institute of Air Hostess
Training is a division of Frankfinn
Aviation Services.

IndiGo to hire 1,500 People in 2011

Low-cost carrier IndiGo on
Wednesday said it plans to hire up to
1,500 people this year to support its
major expansion drive. " IndiGo will hire 1,200-1,500 people in the
calendar year 2011, of which 400-500
would be cabin crew staff, 200-300
pilots, besides some engineers and
ground staff," IndiGo President Aditya Ghosh told PTI. At present, IndiGo has about 3,400
employees and by the end of this year
the number is expected to go up to
4,500-5,000.
In January this year, the no-frill carrier
made news by announcing acquisition of 180 A-320s, worth an estimated $
15.6 billion, from European plane
manufacturer Airbus — the single largest aircraft deal in global aviation
history.
This is the second time IndiGo has
placed such a massive aircraft order.
The company had first entered into an
agreement with Airbus in 2005, to buy 100 A-320s worth $ 6 billion.

Travel Tips:Tips for Safer Flying

Flying can be an adventure, but like
everything else in life, there are small
risks. Even though flying is the safest
way to travel in this modern age, here
are some tips to minimize any
unfortunate, but unlikely event of an emergency situation.
* Try to only fly nonstop routings
Takeoff, climb, descent, and landing
phases of flights have the most
occurrences of accidents. To reduce
these risks reduce the amount of
exposure to these phases of flight by
trying only to fly nonstop.
* Choose a larger aircraft
Aircraft under 30 passengers are not
required to be designed and certified
under strictest regulations. Also
statistically, in a larger aircraft, you
have a better chance of survival in an
unlikely event of a serious accident.
* Pay Attention to the locations of the
emergency exits
Preflight instructions have become
very repetitious. But the information
given regarding the exits are very
important to your safety. Pay attention,
the locations of the closest emergency
exits may be different depending on the aircraft and seat you are in.

Cracking Aircraft Windows with Directed Sound Waves

Today our modern military scientists
have found many uses for directed
energy beams. Some of these uses
include communication, non-lethal
weapons and high-energy lasers.
Directed sound waves and harmonics maybe the answer to stopping
manned aircraft in the battlespace on
its way to find our blue force as its
next target. Using such directed waves
we can penetrate and crack aircraft
canopies, rendering the aircraft useless to continue the mission. Or so
disrupt the enemies mission that it is
forced to turn back completely and
abort or even force the enemy pilot to
eject immediately.

ACARS - How does it work

Aircraft Communication Addressing
and Reporting SystemAircraft
Communications Addressing and
Reporting System (or ACARS) is
adigital datalink system for
transmission of small messages between aircraft and ground stations
via radio or satellite. The protocol,
which was designed by ARINC and
deployed in 1978,uses telex formats.
It will be superseded by the
AeronauticalTelecommunications Network (ATN) protocol and others
more sophisticated. History of ACARSPrior to the
introduction of datalink, all
communication between the aircraft
(i.e., theflight crew) and personnel on
the ground was performed using
voice communication.This communication used either VHF or HF
voice radios, which was further
augmented with SATCOM in the early
1990s.In many cases, the voice-
relayed information involves
dedicated radio operators and digital messages sent through an
Aeronautical Telecommunications
Network (ATN) to an airline teletype
system or its successor systems. Introduction of ACARS SystemsThe
airlines, in an effort to reduce crew
workload and improve data
integrity,introduced the ACARS system
in the late 1980s. (A few initial ACARS
systems were introduced before the late 1980s, but ACARS did not start to
get any widespread use by the major
airlines until the later part of the
1980s.)