Jet Airways moves further close to SkyTeam

India's largest carrier by international passenger traffic, Jet Airways is showing some development in its long haul network. The airline is upgauging existing Europe capacity by deploying Boeing 777-300ER. Better financial performance over the last few quarters fueled by softening of oil prices is believed to be prompting Jet Airways to expand long-haul capacity after really long time. The airline is taking back six Boeing 777-300ER from Etihad following lease expiry between August and November this year. In March this year, Jet Airways had moved its European scissor hub from Brussels to Amsterdam and entered into extensive codeshare partnership with three SkyTeam members Air France-KLM and Delta on European and trans-Atlantic routes. Now this partnership is being extended through Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. These moves are bringing Jet Airways really close to SkyTeam airline alliance. Jet already share close partnership with major SkyTeam members like Alitalia, Garuda Indonesia, Kenya Airways, Korean Air and Vietnam Airlines. Now, this will be interesting to see whether Jet moves further close to SkyTeam and outright joins the alliance in near future.

Air Canada expands India operations with flights to Mumbai

Air Canada had long attempted to set a foothold in Indian market since its first arrival in mid 1980s. But the earlier services were frequently halted due to poor economics of legacy long range aircraft before it has finally developed its niche with the introduction fuel efficient Boeing 787 Dreamliner service on routes to India, one of the largest immigrant countries of Canada. The airline which had earlier operated one-stop fifth freedom flights via European gateways like London Heathrow and then Zurich, had launched the non-stop Toronto-Delhi flight in November last year. Following that in April 2016 it went on to launch seasonal service (October to May) between Vancouver and Delhi and now announces Toronto-Mumbai flight from July next year. 

Top 10 Busiest Airports in India in H1-2016

India, the fastest growing air-travel market in the world, is experiencing the biggest boom in passenger numbers in recent years. Indian airlines carried more than 47.5 million passengers in domestic sector alone in the first six months of 2016 with 22.5% year-on-year (YoY) growth. And the full year domestic passenger volume in 2016 is expected to cross 100 million mark for the first time. As a result, India's top airports are bustling with passenger traffic growing at double digit rate and outpacing even the most liberal growth forecast. Airports in key metropolis like Mumbai, the financial capital of India, is nearing saturation and facing huge congestion. Five out of top ten airports in the list grew at more than 20% rate in H1-2016 which is unparalleled currently in the world. Barring Mumbai all other airports post double digit passenger growth rate. Mumbai too grew at 9.7% YoY rate which by all standard considered as high growth given its large base. Delhi and Bengaluru airports are the star performers with 21% YoY growth with the already large passenger base. 

Navi Mumbai Airport, for a change name it after Gateway

When social media in India (not sure of real India) is busy debating naming and re-naming of public infrastructures and national assets, it is time to try to make it a constructive debate with unconventional ideas in this blog. It is debatable how it is ethical to re-name existing infrastructures and the mass acceptance of given new name for example how many people use Rabindra Setu for Howrah Bridge or Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Road for Marine Drive. Rather it is good to have new ones constructed and name those according to popular or political choices.

Jet Airways moves European Hub to Amsterdam in Summer 2016

Jet Airways, India's largest full-service carrier by market share, is making major restructuring in its European/North American long-haul network in upcoming summer season effective from 27 March 2016. At present it flies to 2 destinations in North America from India via its European scissor hub, Mumbai to Newark and Delhi to Toronto both via Brussels. On 14 December 2015 the airline has announced it would open a new destination in Europe, Amsterdam in summer 2016 and switch its European hub from Brussels to Amsterdam. With this Jet Airways will cease all its flight to Brussels. The airline is also pulling out from Newark, the last US gateway. With the changes made in Jet Airways's network effective from 27 March 2016, Delhi Airport will lose its only flight to Brussels while it will have double daily flight to Amsterdam (KLM and Jet Airways) and Mumbai Airport will get its Amsterdam flight back after a year. Earlier Delta had withdrawn its Amsterdam-Mumbai flight on 28 March 2015. Here is the schedule of Jet Airways's new flights, booking of which has been opened on 15 December 2015. 

Route	Flight No	Departure	Arrival	Effective
DEL-AMS	9W 234	02:35	08:00	Daily from 27 March 2016
AMS-DEL	9W 233	11:40	23:20	Daily from 27 March 2016
YYZ-AMS	9W 233	11:20	13:40	Daily from 26 March 2016
AMS-YYZ	9W 234	19:50	09:15+1	Daily from 27 March 2016
BOM-AMS	9W 232	02:25	08:15	Daily from 27 March 2016
AMS-BOM	9W 231	11:20	23:55	Daily from 27 March 2016

While currently the Brussels flights are operated by a combination of Airbus A330-300 and A330-200 aircraft, all the new flights to Amsterdam will be operated by the 2-class Airbus A330-300 with 34 business-class seats and 259 economy-class seats. With Newark flight being dropped the aircraft on BOM-AMS route will have same day return to Mumbai. Therefor the new schedule will free up1 of the 4 Airbus A330-300 aircraft in Jet Airways fleet. And it will be interesting to see whether the airline deploys the aircraft on a new route or lease it to Etihad which has 24% stake in Jet Airways. It is believed that Jet Airways is dropping Newark, the last US gateway, from its network in favor of Etihad's non-stop flights to North America from Abu Dhabi. Etihad serves 6 destinations in US. 

Jet Airways had launched Brussels as its scissor hub back in 2007. And it used to serve direct flights to Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Newark, New York-JFK and Toronto-Pearson at its peak. But following economic slowdown it had to withdraw Chennai and New York flights in 2012. Shifting base from Brussels to Amsterdam makes sense and it was long expected as Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is the 5th busiest airports in Europe with 54.9 million annual traffic in 2014 while Brussels Airport ranks at 23 with 21.9 million annual traffic in 2014. Moreover Amsterdam is better connected to other European destinations with strong hub-carrier KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Delta on trans-Atlantic flights. Even in terms of India-Europe O&D passenger traffic also Amsterdam stands much ahead of Brussels. As per international city-pair passengers data for Q2 and Q3 2015 released by DGCA. The Delhi-Amsterdam passenger traffic is almost double of in size of Delhi-Brussels traffic.

Period	DEL-AMS	AMS-DEL	Total
Q2 2015	20,711	17,994	38,705
Q3 2015	14,505	13,576	28,081
Total passengers in Q2 + Q3 2015			66,786

Period	DEL-BRU	BRU-DEL	Total
Q2 2015	10,781	7,579	18,360
Q3 2015	10,290	9,369	19,659
Total passengers in Q2 + Q3 2015			38,019

With shifting its European scissor hub to Amsterdam, Jet Airways will enhance its partnership with SkyTeam members KLM and Delta based in Amsterdam. Jet already has code-share partnership with several SkyTeam members including KLM and it will start code-sharing on its new routes with Delta and KLM from 27 March 2016. This strategic partnership with KLM/Delta will allow Jet Airways to code-share on 11 destinations in North America and 30 destinations across Europe from Amsterdam in the coming months. At present it code-share on its Brussels flights with Brussels Airline, a Star Alliance member but the scope is limited given the relatively small size of the airline. Etihad too has good commercial relation with Air France-KLM group. Therefore the move may lead to Jet Airways inching close to full-membership of SkyTeam in next couple of months.