Sold out in 30 mins: Here is why people want to eat on a grounded plane

 

At the point when Singapore Airlines Ltd. said seats on its superjumbo-turned-eatery sold out in a short time, one regular inquiry was: "Who on Earth would need to do that?"

A lot of individuals, it turns out. For each individual who doesn't savor flying, not to mention schlepping to the air terminal and onto a stopped plane for some warmed carrier food, there's another who can't get enough of the flying experience and is eager to dish out (heaps of cash) for it.

Singapore Airlines is opening up two of its Airbus SE A380s at Changi Airport as brief eateries for two ends of the week in the not so distant future, offering dishes from its menu, two complimentary mixed beverages and free progression of different drinks. A supper in a suite costs S$642 ($472), while costs are S$321 for a business-class seat, S$96.30 for premium economy and S$53.50 for economy.

At the top end, such a cash would handily get you an eight-course degustation at Odette, reliably positioned as one of the world's best eateries, or a supper for two, or more wine, at Cut, the Marina Bay Sands steak house that is important for superstar gourmet expert Wolfgang Puck's steady.

Mayur Patel was eager to apply for the sweet suite seat. The provincial deals chief for movement information supplier OAG Aviation Worldwide said he needed to encounter the suite again subsequent to flying in one once from Sydney to Singapore. As an individual from Singapore Airlines' top-level Solitaire PPS Club for a very long time, Patel additionally needed to help the transporter since he feels appended to the brand.

Here are some a greater amount of his bits of knowledge into what pulled in individuals to the offer:

What propels individuals to burn through several dollars on this when they could go to a 5-star café or lodging around?

The SIA A380 feasting experience was something that astounded many. Why anyone would burn through S$50 for economy class to S$600 for suites was astounding for a few. Notwithstanding, there are numerous perspectives to taking a gander at this.

Airlines must extend credit period for two years: SC on cancelled tickets

The Supreme Court on Friday requested that the Center stand firm on discounting via carriers on abrogation of tickets during the lockdown, and proposed that the aircraft administrators must expand the credit time frame for a long time.
A seat involving Justices Ashok Bhushan, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M.R. Shah recommended that a credit note via aircrafts must have an existence of in any event 2 years, and for any course, if that is the exit plan.
The top court additionally underscored that the Center must stand firm on this issue. The seat asked the Center and aircrafts to sit together and devise modalities on the approaches to discount the travelers for dropping of their tickets during the lockdown.
The perception from the top court went ahead a supplication documented by Pravasi Legal Cell through supporter Jose Abraham. The supplication asked the top court to announce non-discounting of the measure of the tickets via aircrafts as "illicit and violative of the Civil Aviation Requirement" gave by the DGCA.

The applicant battled that aircrafts, rather than giving full discount of the sum gathered for dropped tickets, are giving a credit shell, legitimate as long as one year

Vistara to launch international flights in the second half of 2019

Current Affairs
Full service carrier Vistara, which has been serving the Indian skies for more than four years, plans to launch international services in the second half of this year.
A joint venture between Tatas and Singapore Airlines, Vistara might also look at starting medium and long-haul flights, depending on approvals, amid the grounding of Jet Airways.
"We see India as a growing market. We are here for the long term," Vistara CEO Leslie Thng said on the sidelines of the annual general meeting of airlines' grouping IATA on Sunday.
Without providing specific details, he said the airline plans to start international operations in the second half of 2019.
It had planned to launch overseas flights in the first half of this year.
Currently, Vistara has more than 22 planes and operates around 850 flights every week.
Last month, the carrier announced it would take on lease four Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft and two A320 neo planes.
In 2018, Vistara placed its order for purchased and leased aircraft totalling 50 from the Airbus A320neo family, including A321neos.These would be for domestic as well as short and medium-haul international operations, with deliveries scheduled between 2019 and 2023.

 Further, the carrier has bought six Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft that are scheduled to be delivered between 2020 and 2021. These would operate long-haul international operations.Thng said, Vistara can start short-haul flights but would need more time for long-haul ones.

Jet Airways timeline: How the 'Joy of Flying' airline's dreams soured

Current Affairs

Beleaguered carrier Jet Airways halted all operations on Wednesday after its lenders rejected its plea for emergency funding from the airline that was once India's largest private carrier.

The airline, known for its "The Joy of Flying" tagline, has been teetering for weeks, saddled with over $1 billion in debt.

Its lenders, led by State Bank of India (SBI), last month agreed to bail it out in a complex deal that involved the banks taking a majority stake and providing a fresh loan of $217 million, while continuing to look for a new investor. That loan never materialised, gradually crippling the 25-year old airline's operations.

Here are some major developments in Jet's story:

2018

Aug 3 - Jet denies media report it cannot fly beyond 60 days, dismisses rumours of stake sale

Aug 11 - State Bank of India (SBI) chairman says Jet's loan is on watch list. Jet says regularly paying banks.

Aug 27 - Jet posts June-quarter loss, says will inject funds, cut costs by more than 20 billion rupees ($288 million) in two years

Sept 6 - Jet says paid salaries to 84 percent of its employees after media reports that pilots warned 'non-cooperation' over salary default

Nov 5 - Media report says Indian conglomerate Tata Group aims to buy 51 percent stake in airline and merge Jet with Tata's Vistara


 Dec 5 - Jet and UAE's Etihad Airways have been holding rescue talks with Jet's bankers, sources tell Reuters..Read More

The days of national airlines are over: Why flag carriers must be shut down

Companies News

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told reporters he's studying whether to sell, shut down or refinance Malaysia Airlines Bhd., the troubled national carrier. A decision needs to be made soon. In 2018, the perpetually money-losing airline accounted for about half of the $1.5 billion in losses suffered by its parent, Khazanah Nasional Bhd., Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund.

On purely economic terms, Mahathir’s decision should be easy. In 2014, following the loss of planes and lives in the MH370 disappearance and the tragic downing of MH17 over Ukraine, Khazanah announced a restructuring intended to make the airline profitable by 2018. It’s failed for one central reason: Malaysia Airlines remains a state-owned flag carrier, slow-moving and burdened by political expectations. At a time when low-cost airlines offer a perfectly adequate and more competitive alternative, Malaysia isn’t the only country that should rethink whether it really needs a national airline.

The concept of a flag carrier dates back to the establishment in the mid-1940s of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations regulator. Every nation was given the opportunity to operate international air services. Some countries, including the U.S., chose to let private companies do the flying. Others decided to establish, subsidize and protect flag carriers, even to the point of restricting competition on key routes.


 Those airlines had goals other than profits. For decades, according to Brian Summers at Skift, "nearly every national airline within 12 hours of New York flew to John F. Kennedy Airport, or wanted to -- whether the flights lost money or not."

All women crew to fly 12 international, 40 domestic Air India flights today

Companies News

National carrier Air India will be flying 12 international flights as well as 40-plus domestic flights with an all-women crew on Friday, Women's Day.

Air India will be deploying its B787 Dreamliners and B777s aircraft to operate to 12 international medium and long-haul flights solely operated exclusively by women pilots and attended by women cabin crew.

The women led cockpit and cabin crew will be operating both wide and narrow-body aircraft in its fleet to all corners of the world.

"It is a moment of absolute pride and honour for Air India that our women employees are leaving their mark in the aviation sector on a global scale. I would like to congratulate our women crew for operating so many flights on various international and domestic routes fuelled by their indomitable Nari Shakti," said Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani.

The international sectors that will have the all-women crew on its flights on March 8 are Delhi-Sydney, Mumbai-London, Delhi-Rome, Delhi-London, Mumbai-Delhi-Shanghai, Delhi-Paris, Mumbai-Newark, Mumbai-New York, Delhi-New York, Delhi-Washington, Delhi-Chicago and Delhi-San Francisco.

Women pilots and cabin crew will be operating Airbus family aircraft as well as Dreamliners to over 40 domestic destinations and back to commemorate the occasion.


 For most of these flights, the technical services will be provided by woman aircraft engineers, technicians and flight dispatchers while there will be woman duty managers, counter staff, helpers and doctors to provide their services.

Indigo to China Airlines: Worsening pilot shortage sours Asia's travel boom

Companies News:

An unprecedented travel boom in Asia has spawned new budget carriers and millions of first-time fliers, but a shortage of pilots is threatening to choke that demand.

Bamboo Airways Co. in Vietnam was the latest low-cost carrier to start services this year and more are expected to join the race. In Southeast Asia alone, LCCs have about 1,400 aircraft on order, compared with fewer than 400 for full-service carriers, according to CAPA Centre for Aviation. With the supply of pilots lagging behind, the airlines will struggle to find skilled cockpit crew.

“There’s a real crunch coming,” Peter Harbison, executive chairman of Sydney-based CAPA said in Singapore. “For new airlines, it’s much, much harder and it’s going to be a real struggle.”

Global traffic is set to double in the next two decades with the biggest increase expected in the Asia-Pacific region, where almost 4 billion passenger journeys are expected, according to the International Air Transport Association. Boeing Co. forecasts the region needs 16,930 new planes and about 261,000 pilots through 2037. That means the current fleets and the number of pilots will need to double during that period, according to the planemaker.

The strain is already showing. IndiGo, Asia’s biggest budget carrier by market value, last month decided to scrap dozens of flights every day through March after many of its pilots exhausted their annual limit on flying hours. Taiwan’s China Airlines Ltd. averted a crisis this month by agreeing to improve working conditions at an annual cost of almost $4 million after the pilots union, citing fatigue among other complaints, went on a seven-day strike.


 Even some outside Asia are running into problems: Emirates, the world’s biggest long-haul airline, said in April that a shortage of pilots forced it to cut flights...Read More

Indigo crisis: India facing pilot shortage; 2,000 more needed this year

Economy & Policy:

The cancellation of over 30 flights by IndiGo has bought the growing shortage of pilots to the fore, especially when airlines are expanding their fleet.
According to industry estimates, more than 100 new planes will be added in the next 12 months, a bulk of which will come from IndiGo alone, currently adding nine planes every month. As a result, around 1,500-2,000 additional pilots will be required in 2018-19 to fly new aircraft and tide over the existing crisis in the cockpit.

Despite more flights in operation, the number of additional commanders being recruited is slowing down. Aviation industry estimates the number of additional commanders recruited by carriers fell by around 10 per cent in 2017-18 over 2016-17. This was despite domestic carriers scrambling for more expatriates to make up for the dwindling pool of qualified home-grown commanders.

According to CAPA Research, the country has over 7,963 pilots and will require an additional 17,000 pilots in the next 10 years, of which 9,000 first officers will be upgraded to commanders.
IndiGo currently has 3,100 pilots on its payroll. The carrier constitutes for 38 per cent of pilots recruited by domestic airlines. It also has a domestic market share of 41 per cent and is planning an aggressive overseas flightpath. It has over 1,250 captains, which effectively constitutes for over 31 per cent of the 4,000 commanders in service.


According to an airline executive, the ballpark figure of five to six commanders and an equal number of co-pilots, or a total of 12 per aircraft, is needed. “It also takes four to five years for a pilot to become a commander,” he said.

Is merging Air India and Jet Airways the way to save the sinking airlines?

Companies News:

To have one airline limping forward on the brink of bankruptcy may be regarded as a misfortune. To have two looks like carelessness.

That’s the fundamental problem for India’s aviation industry, home to the critically ill Jet Airways India Ltd. and its state-owned rival Air India Ltd., which more or less died in 2012 but has been kept on life support thanks to ongoing infusions of taxpayer cash.

Facing collapse, Jet has been trying to restructure its debt and seeking bailout money from founder Naresh Goyal and leading shareholder Etihad Airways PJSC. Should those attempts fail, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have to explain the loss of 23,000 jobs ahead of May elections.


 Air India, known locally as the Maharajah, has been in similarly dire straits. An attempted privatization last year attracted zero expressions of interest. The government is considering a fresh turnaround plan, the Indian Express reported in September...Read More