Edits, Coulmns & Analysis - August 2006

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Apartheid in the sky
EDITORIAL
Times of India
Aug 28, 2006
The detention of 12 Indian passengers on a Mumbai-bound flight by Dutch security agencies and their subsequent humiliation is not a one-off incident. A few days earlier, two British Asian students were taken off a flight after co-passengers complained about their 'suspicious' behaviour.
What this amounts to is racial stereotyping of the worst order. Anyone who looks Asian and sports a beard is now likely to be regarded as a potential terrorist. Leaving aside the fact that such a policy is blatantly racist, it is also unlikely to hit the intended target the suicide bomber.
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Budget carriers continue to increase market share
Sudhir Chowdhary
Financial Express
Aug 28, 2006
Fortunately for Indian travelers, today’s low-cost carriers — Air Deccan, SpiceJet, GoAir and IndiGo — are continuing to grow rapidly and expected to attain 70% of domestic market by 2010. The key to a low-cost carriers’ success is a right mix of providing travel basics to flyers while running on a lean and focused operating model.
Sounds simple till you consider some challenges the carriers face — rising fuel (ATF) prices, high taxation, fees and security costs levied by the government and regulatory agencies, increased competition from regular carriers and so on. Moreover, as budget carriers look to evolve their business models and differentiate their services to travelers, their margins suffer from rapid growth.
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Blackening our conscience
Vir Sanghvi
Hindustan Times
Aug 27, 2006
Two things need to be said about the incident on board a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Bombay. One of them is self-evident and will, I think, meet with widespread agreement. The second is as self-evident but will, I suspect, be greeted with greater scepticism.
The first is that, no matter what spin the Dutch authorities and the US marshals on board who ordered the plane to be turned back give to the incident, what happened was clearly an instance of racism and religious prejudice.
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INTERVIEW : Captain GR Gopinath
‘Investment in aircraft production would add impetus to the economy’
Financial Express
Aug 27, 2006
The India's revolutionary low cost airline, Air Deccan, a part of Deccan Aviation Limited commenced its operations as a chartered aircraft service provider. Today, the company is India's largest private heli-charter company. In the airlines business the company has emerged as one of the fastest growing airlines company in India. The company's managing director Captain GR Gopinath is a graduate of the National Defence Academy. He spoke with Jitendra Kumar Gupta of The Financial Express. Excerpts:
What is your view on Indian aviation sector and low cost airlines in particular?
The Indian aviation industry has been growing rapidly in the last few years, consequent to the opening up of the scheduled domestic air transport services to private companies coupled with better economic growth and increased purchasing power. The opening up of international routes for private domestic carriers, the introduction of open skies regime, the substantial increase in flight entitlements under bilateral agreements and initiation of private sector participation in the development and management of airports has also led to the rapid expansion of the Indian aviation sector.
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Racial Profiling Pulls Indians From Plane
Praful Bidwai (internews)
OhmyNews International, South Korea
Aug 27, 2006

The 12 Indian men, who were arrested and detained for 30 hours by Dutch authorities following a security alert on a Northwest Airlines from Amsterdam to Mumbai earlier this week, were victims of racial prejudice. All of them are Muslims and none had the remotest connection with a terrorist group or criminal activities.
The Indian government has protested to the Netherlands against the "objectionable" treatment meted out to its citizens. It summoned the Dutch ambassador to India on Friday night and told him that the incident was not in keeping with "friendly relations between the Netherlands and India." India's foreign affairs spokesperson said "the response that is required [from the Dutch] is self-evident," clearly meaning that an apology is due.
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‘The sound of boots was terrifying’
Daily News & Analysis
Augt 27, 2006
After a 22-hour long wait for the Northwest Airlines flight at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, I was tired. All I wanted to do was to get on to the flight and sleep all through the journey to Mumbai. I even called my wife, Farheen (25), and asked her to cook some special Indian food.
The security procedure at the airport was tedious, especially the personal interviews where 12 of us were asked pointed questions about our work and what we had been doing for the past month. They also confiscated mobile phones and sim cards belonging to all of us. Once on the plane, we found a number of seats vacant, and decided to make ourselves comfortable. A number of us exchanged seats, as did many of the other passengers.
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Flying in the time of fear
Sanchita Sharma | urban gypsy
Hindustan Times
Aug 26, 2006

If you put aside having to place your passport and tickets in a ziploc bag and then take off your shoes and jacket for security checks, you might just discover the lighter side of travel in the shadow of terror. The alert following the arrest of would-be bombers in London on August 10 resulted in a blanket ban on all electronic devices and liquids in carry-on baggage.
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'The situation could soon be difficult to manage
Rashmee Roshan Lall
Times of India
Aug 26, 2006
London: Asians travelling abroad are repeatedly complaining of harassment.
A case in point. Ethnic Indian Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Claude Moraes' has made loud protests that he is repeatedly treated as a suspected terrorist while travelling, having twice been detained and subjected to a full body search at airports for the temerity to "travel while Asian".
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Turn on those landing lights
Ravi Teja Sharma
Business Standard
Aug 25, 2006
Tourism Chartered planeloads of tourists landing in Jaipur? Sooner than you think, perhaps.
Chartered flights full of tourists have been touching down in India for quite some years now. Goa is a big destination. Kerala is catching on too. Agra got one chartered planeload last year.
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Mushrooming travel portals do roaring business
C Jyanthi & Rouhan Sharma
Financial Express
Aug 26, 2006
August 13 and August 23 will go down as important dates in Indian air ticketing industry. Both dates saw Air Deccan, India’s biggest discount airline and among the top three carriers in the country, releasing nearly half a million tickets for the September-January period. The rush to lap up these inexpensive tickets ended in confusion not only on the airline’s online counter but also on the country’s leading air ticket portals. Most websites hung and phone lines were jammed for over an hour.
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'World's strictest airport security'
Peter Mandel
Providence Journal, US
Aug 22, 2006
Srinagar: The soldirer and airport-security guy are pointing, pointing. What do they want? Not my camera. Not my car clicker. It's my pen. A Paper Mate soft grip -- see-through plastic, flattened cap. Also, I have no clue why, my wallet. They ignore the I.D. and get to work on trying to strip out the little pockets that hold cards. "Hey," I say. This brings instant reinforcements. Sullen faces. Khaki turbans. Guns under armpits, nightsticks stuck to hips.
My plane is loading but I'm taken out of line. I have a wallet thought: These guys need a bribe?
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India's great low fare spiral
Govindraj Ethiraj
Business Standard
Aug 22, 2006
New Delhi:A few days ago, a senior airline executive narrated this discussion his colleagues had with the Air Traffic Control officials. The meeting’s objective was to explore ways of reducing airport delays at Mumbai and Delhi.
Why, the airline asked, did ATC want such long gaps between take-offs? After all, most modern airports allowed lift-off intervals of under a minute. ATC Mumbai, for instance, insists on intervals spanning several minutes. With just one runway, obviously sequential delays increase.
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Commercial Aviation in India – The HR Challenge
IAG Blog
Aug 21, 2006
India’s airlines are growing fast. They are facing large-scale people problems – a critical shortage of skilled people to run highly complex businesses. The public sector is of little help in improving matters.
The Indian airline sector is experiencing a shortage of flying talent. Most of Indian airlines are hiring pilots from abroad. Cabin crew finishing schools are mushrooming, but training quality remains a concern because demand is rushing training. New airline entrants are poaching talent from existing airlines, and retention is becoming a problem. It is not just pilots or cabin crew, even ex-pat management attrition is an issue.
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A ticket to ride
Deepak Khanna
Business Standard
Aug 22, 2006
New Delhi: What low cost airlines can learn from the Indian railways.
You have to hand it to the low cost airlines — they have truly democratised air travel and in the bargain, generated hundreds of jobs, directly and indirectly.
But there’s still a trick or two the low cost carriers could learn from the Indian Railways. Here’s one that could help them move into a new orbit in terms of customer relationship management. What’s more, it will help the airlines make some extra money, too.
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`Aviation geek' giving airplanes a new lease on life
Ameet Sachdev
Chicago Tribune, United States
Aug 20, 2006
When Delta Air Lines entered bankruptcy last year, the Atlanta carrier looked to jettison some old airplanes that no longer were fuel efficient. Up stepped Brian Hollnagel.
The brash, 33-year-old Chicago native smelled a chance to acquire some cheap jets and make money by flipping them. Hollnagel bought 26 Boeing 737-200s. While the 20-year-old planes are ancient by domestic-airline standards, they still have some useful flying life left in them.
He already has found a home for many of the planes, including an oil company that needed a plane to ferry workers to Russia and Japan from Sakhalin Island.
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Low-cost airlines plan to woo customers with upgraded facilities
Gouri Shah
DNA India
Aug 20, 2006
As the battle for the skies hots up, low-cost carriers are readying themselves for more than just price wars. And understandably so, as industry experts believe the outcome of the battle will be determined not just by “historically low” fares but also punctuality and the quality of service offered by the airlines
Battle for the skies takes off on ‘quality’
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Indian aviation flying low- Why ?
Moneycontrol.com
Aug 19, 2006
It was the hottest sector last year, but no more. The Indian Aviation industry has hit an air pocket even though the global aviation industry is flying high after 9/11.
CNBC-TV18 finds the poor performance of Indian carriers has forced many new airlines to ground plans even before take off.From hot to not - in just one year the Indian aviation industry is crashing out of favour.
Jet's Rs 95 crore profit for the first quarter last year is down to a Rs 45 crore loss this year and Air Deccan lost a total Rs 35 crore in the 12 months up to March. Even SpiceJet lost close to Rs 41 crore.So why is India flying low?
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Introducing the spice of flight
Express TravelWorld
Aug 18, 2006
A low-cost model fused with a sophisticated product has made SpiceJet the inevitable candidate for leadership in India's fastest growing segment of domestic aviation, finds Bhisham Mansukhani

India's domestic aviation space was regarded with the courtesy of a somewhat cottage industry until the sudden burst that witnessed a combination of government reform and private enterprise, making it virtually a household subject and eventually a household option of travel - a far cry from its initial elitist stigma.
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"We owe allegiance to airlines and travel agents"
Express TravelWorld
Aug 18, 2006
Galileo CEO Bruce Hanna's initial months in office have been interesting enough for him to believe that the Indian travel market is currently at it is best stage of evolution, he tells Bhisham Mansukhani

What is level of evolution of the Indian travel market vis a vis the global scenario?
India is perhaps in the best evolution stage, which is one of learning from other markets’ best practices and experiences. India is poised to leap ahead of what has happened in other markets. For instance, we are currently making a transaction from paper tickets to full e-tickets. We also have the opportunity here of improving on other market experiences, like Galileo's dynamic e-ticket that clearly indicates the airline logo reassuring travellers that their itinerary is official and the e-ticket in hand works!
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Adventures of the low-fliers
Daily News & Analysis
Aug 17, 2006
With no frills and cheap tickets, they planned to take the common man to the sky. But with inordinate delays, long queues for baggage clearance and arbitrary cancellations, are budget airlines economising on peace of mind?
Cochin before Mumbai
I was thrilled when I landed a reasonably-priced ticket on Go Air for my trip from Mumbai to Coimbatore. On my return ticket, it was clearly mentioned that flight would be a direct one. On the day of departure, I received a call saying that my flight would take off an hour earlier.
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Becoming an Aerospace Technology Sourcing Hub
PRMinds (press release), France
(IT Market Research)
Aug 16, 2006
With high growth in IT and aerospace technologies India is on the edge of world aerospace. Indian aerospace firms are internationally competitive and customer oriented.
Equipped with comparative advantage of cheap and skilled engineers, India is positioned to become a key-sourcing hub for global aerospace firms. The combination of its successful information and aerospace technologies has given India an edge over its aerospace industry. India has made its place in the global aerospace industry, making them internationally competitive and customer oriented.
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SpiceJet’s financial wiggle
Daily News & Analysis
R Jagannathan & Vivek Kaul
Augt 15, 2006
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that India’s airlines are fighting an uphill battle to stay out of the red. With costs (especially fuel) rising continuously and fares staying low, margins are wafer thin even for the best performers in the industry. Little wonder then, many of the airlines are trying every trick in the book to lift bottomlines out of the water.
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She grooms S'pore Girls
Arul John
Electric New Paper, Singapore
Aug 16, 2006

She is one of only five faces behind the Singapore Girl.
Together with four other colleagues, Ms Foo Juat Fang (above) is a cabin crew trainer tasked to make Singapore Airlines (SIA) stewards and stewardesses the best in the business.
Selected from experienced crew members, the single ex-Singapore Girl, who is in her 40s, helps put trainees through their paces to transform them into airborne ambassadors.
Ms Foo was an SIA stewardess for 19 years and rose to the top post of senior chief stewardess before she became a cabin crew trainer in late 1996.
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AVIATION: Hitting at the red
Ravi Teja Sharma
Business Standard
Aug 15, 2006

New Delhi: India’s airline companies join their global counterparts in the search for non-ticket revenues. India’s airline companies have hit on a sure fire way to beat their blues — NTR or non-ticket revenues. With intense competition and thin margins, Indian aviation companies, like their counterparts around the world, have started getting aggressive to garner NTRs at all touch-points with the consumer.
Of course, NTRs are much more critical for low cost carriers like Air Deccan. Its first brush with NTR probably preceded the ticket sales, when it painted NDTV ads on the body of its aircraft.
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Mirror test drive/ Waiting for change
Mumbai Mirror
Aug 15, 2006

Two months after GVK took over the Mumbai airport, frequent flier Rahul Arora examines facilities at the domestic terminal and finds out that hardly anything has changed, for better or for worse.
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Battling the big boys
Gary Stoller, USA Today,
The News Journal, US
Aug 13, 2006

Eight small airlines over the past year have quietly begun frequent-flier programs that include some innovative wrinkles.
Go, a new airline owned by Phoenix-based Mesa Air, became the latest airline to start a loyalty program in June when it started inter-island service in Hawaii.
Three other U.S. carriers -- Florida-based Spirit Airlines, Virginia-based Maxjet and New York-based Eos -- introduced frequent-flier programs this year. They join four foreign airlines -- Belgium's Virgin Express, Germany's German Wings, Australia's Virgin Blue and India's Kingfisher -- that have begun loyalty programs in the past year.
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Down memory lane: First woman pilot recounts life story
Swati Thiyagarajan
NDTV.com
Augt 13, 2006

New Delhi: As the country gets ready to celebrate 59 years of Independence, NDTV brings you the story of a woman who broke all barriers all those years ago.
Sarla Thukral was India's first woman pilot. If it was not for the war she would have even become India's first commercial airline pilot.
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Secure airport: Slum stands in way
Manju V, Times of India
13 Aug, 2006
Mumabi: On the hilltop in the Jarimari area of Andheri, life for a terrorist could be pretty uncomplicated. Boeing 747s, 737s, Airbus 320s and ATRs all line up to head for the runway for take-off a few metres away.
You can see the blast from the engines as the aircraft ready for take-off. Slumdwellers and boys playing cricket on the other side of the airport wall, more often than not, do not bother to look up.
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Rediff Interview | Vishwapati Trivedi, MD, Indian
How Indian (Airlines) plans to fly high
Rediff
Aug 11, 2006

It oscillates between the second and third slot in the industry, depending upon which parameters you use, but Indian Airlines' chief Vishwapati Trivedi is still important enough for market leader Jet Airways chief Naresh Goyal to buttonhole him for a quick chat once this interview's over. Trivedi acknowledges the problems of the past, and present, and outlines his plans to fly out of turbulence.
Excerpts from an interview with Surajeet Das Gupta & Sunil Jain:
Air Deccan says it has pushed you to the number three slot in the market.
We have not got the DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) numbers that are being talked of, and the situation changes from month to month. You can calculate shares in various ways, like the passengers in the domestic market only, or the total - after all, 40 per cent of our capacity is deployed in the international market.
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Veteran travelers hate paying excess baggage
Farzana Contractor
Afternoon Dispatch & Courier
Aug 12, 2006

Veteran travelers hate paying excess baggage and I was no exception...
Two decades ago it looked like we were stuck with just Indian Airlines. Good, bad or ugly. There didn’t seem even a remote possibility of any new player coming onto the scene, what with the kind of government policies we had. Then with the easing up of red tapism and what not, East West and Damania Airways of Parvez fame came along, Jet and Sahara followed and travel life eased considerably. If ModiLuft actually took off, I can’t remember, but Damania faded into the sky and East West crashed out amidst murmurs of dubious connections.
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Bruce Ashby: No hidden cost and gimmicks in our fares’
Express Money
Augt 07, 2006

IndiGo, the latest entrant in the domestic civil aviation space, took off its first flight from Delhi to Imphal on August 4. The low cost carrier plans to expand its fleet size from four aircraft now, to 15 by the end of December 2007. It proposes to serve around 30 Indian cities with a fleet of 40 Airbus A-320s by 2010. Bruce Ashby, president & CEO, IndiGo speaks to Deepti Bhaskaran on the burgeoning market for no-frills air travel and what sets Indigo apart.
How many sectors will you be introducing this year?
We officially took off to the skies in the first week of August, with daily flights on the Delhi-Imphal sector (via Guwahati). On the 10th, we would be launching daily flights on the Delhi-Bangalore sector via Pune. Then, on 30th we plan to extend on the Delhi-Kolkata-Guwahati route, and non-stop daily flights between Delhi and Bangalore.
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India struggles to keep aircraft aloft
Raja M
Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
Aug 8, 2006

With airline passenger traffic recording record highs in India and new airlines opening by the week to accommodate an expanding flying public now estimated at 150 million, airlines are scrambling to recruit, hire and train enough pilots to keep planes in the air and maintain reasonable safety standards and profit margins.
Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel informed parliament in a speech on July 27 on the extent of the problem and the steps the government is taking to deal with it. Measures include increasing the retirement age of pilots from 60 to 65, setting up more flight-training schools, and involving more foreign pilots in training and in flying commercial aircraft.
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A rough ride for aviation
Financial Express
Aug 05, 2006
If anyone needed proof on the boom in India’s aviation industry, a trip to the new departure lounge at Mumbai airport is all it will take to get convinced. It’s 3 pm - the leanest hour of the day - on a muggy Monday yet there’s isn’t a single unoccupied seat in the lounge. Passengers are sitting on the stairs, shrieking children run past winding queues, aircraft crew skirt a crowded kiosk serving snacks and harried ground staff check the boarding passes of commuters heading out to the first flight of the afternoon.
India’s aviation sector is booming and the eight airlines whose planes dot the country’s skies should be happy at the roaring demand, right? Wrong.
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Pilots' medical test: Apply now, do it next year
Times of India
Aug 05, 2006
Mumbai: Pilots have become pricey affairs with the boom in the airline sector. But, though airlines may be scrambling for pilots, becoming a pilot can be test your patience.
One crucial step you need to take before you become a pilot - the class-I medical test that you have to clear before you are handed over the Commercial Pilot's Licence (CPL) - can take you close to a year.
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Bangalore, Hyderabad compete over airports
T S Sudhir & Darius Taraporevala
NDTV.com/ Aug 05, 2006
Hyderabad, Bangalore: Bangalore and Hyderabad's rivalry in the IT space is well chronicled. Both cities are once again competing to finish two of the most modern airports in the country and the target is the first quarter of 2008.
The 4,260 m long runway at the new international airport in Hyderabad is perhaps an indication that the city is indeed looking ahead. The runway will be the longest at any airport in the country.
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Airports ready to take off to future
Bhargavi Kerur
Daily News And Analysis
Aug 01, 2006
Wonder what Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport will look like in the future? Industry experts predict it will be a reflection of Singapore’s Changi Airport — one of the finest airports in the world.The airport is being designed by the GVK consortium, and has been drawn up on the lines of international airports abroad, the details of which were revealed in a press conference in June.
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