No plain Jane travel

With Hello Tomorrow, Emirates Airlines attempts to go a step beyond its last Keep Discovering anthem

The European man in the first scene of the current Emirates television campaign who dreamily looks out of the window of his car, is seen in the last scene of the commercial too — on a bus going down a dusty road in India.
The theme of connectivity is all-pervasive as one scene leads to another

The ‘Hello Tomorrow’ campaign, which is across mass media and digital, attempts to project the Emirates as not just a carrier of people, but also as a lifestyle brand as it increasingly faces competition from operators located in the Gulf region, where it is based, as well as from global carriers.

Ratan Shrivastava, director (aerospace and defence practice) at Frost & Sullivan, says “Emirates wants to position its service as an experience. This campaign tries to target a growing customer base that is travelling with a perspective of “experiencing and exploring with a bit of extravaganza.” It is not just plain Jane travel anymore,” he says.

For Emirates this is crucial. It was ranked fifth amongst international airlines for passengers flown in 2010 and aspires to be the largest airline by 2015.

The new brand theme is an attempt to connect with the modern-day traveller and promote Dubai, where it is headquartered, as a global aviation hub. Currently, Emirates operates the largest fleet of wide-body Boeing 777s and Airbus A380s in the world and is adding new routes each month.

“Our new corporate image underlines the confidence we have in our existing products and services,” says Maurice Flanagan, vice-chairman of Emirates Airline & Group. “Emirates is not just offering a way to connect people from point A to point B, but is the catalyst to connect people’s hopes, dreams and aspirations,” he says.

The new campaign, aviation analysts and brand experts say, is in sync with the airline’s expansion strategy too.

“Emirates is reinventing itself for a more global audience and with a common theme to unite all the markets and destinations it serves. The airline is clearly looking to build on its brand recognition particularly as it expands into new areas like the United States and also in Latin America,” says London based aviation analyst Saj Ahmad.

Earlier this year Emirates launched flights to Dallas and Seattle from Dubai and is launching a service to Washington DC as it competes with European carriers which dominate trans-Atlantic routes. From an Indian point of view, it is the largest foreign airline operator with 185 flight a week.

Yet, for all this, the Americas contribute just about 10 per cent to Emirates at the moment, which is less than even Africa. East Asia & Australia and Europe, on the other hand, contribute the bulk at 29.2 per cent and 27.2 per cent respectively.

“Challenges (to Emirates) come from Etihad and Qatar Airways, who are also pursuing a hub model with new aircraft and services. But Emirates benefits from a wider network of destinations in addition to the popularity of Dubai as a transit point,” said Raghu Mandagolathur, senior vice president (research) in Markaz, a Kuwait-based investment bank and asset management company.

As far as India is concerned, Emirates has expanded rapidly. In the last decade, flight operations have gone up almost five times. If that is not enough, Emirates is now focusing on exclusive services - such as a dedicated lounge, the second such, at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi for its business and first class passengers.

This comes in addition to its chauffeur-drive service in Chennai last year exclusively again for first and business class passengers. The chauffeur-drive service is already available for passengers in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Orhan Abbas, vice-president, India & Nepal, Emirates Airlines says, “The Indian market has always assumed significance for Emirates’ international operations and we are always on the lookout for opportunities to strengthen our relations with India.” He adds that the passenger revenue from India was up 18 per cent in first half of 2011 and average load factors were over 80 per cent.

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/no-plain-jane-travel/475707/

Kingfisher accounts frozen again

NEW DELHI: Kingfisher Airlines’ accounts were frozen again by the IT department on Tuesday. However, the airline said that this action was not valid.

The IT department had apparently frozen the airlines’ account once again for defaulting on their payments. Kingfisher is supposed to make a weekly deposit of Rs 9 crore with the department, however for the last two weeks it could deposit only Rs 4.5 crore.

In a statement, Kingfisher clarified that the IT department’s move was not right as per the appellate tribunal’s order.

“The IT department attached two of our bank accounts on May 24 which was not in accordance with the speaking order of the IT appellate tribunal during the hearing. Subsequently, in a written order of May 25 the tribunal set aside the entire demand made by the IT assessing officer. As such there are no tax dues to be currently paid and the attachment orders on two bank accounts have to be lifted,” the company spokesperson said.

http://expressbuzz.com/finance/business/Kingfisher-accounts-frozen-again/396674.html

Air India Pilot Squabbles Mar 787 Debut: Corporate India

Air India Ltd. is set to receive its first Boeing (BA) Co. 787 this week as a pilots’ dispute over who should fly the aircraft triggers cuts in international services and more than 100 dismissals.
A team is already in the U.S. for the handover, which will follow the government giving final approval for a method of pursuing compensation for delivery delays, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said in New Delhi today. Air India plans to start using the jet with services to Melbourne, he said May 25.
“The induction of the 787 should have been a major and positive milestone,” said Binit Somaia, a Sydney-based director of CAPA Centre for Aviation, an industry consultant. “Instead, there is a possibility that the new plane may be temporarily grounded due to human-resources issues.”
Travelers have suffered three weeks of disruptions because of protests rooted in a merger five years ago that left the state-owned airline with duplicate resources and warring unions. It has also caused losses, with the government this year agreeing to 300 billion rupees ($5.4 billion) of bailouts through 2020.
The fuel-efficient plane is about three years late because of production delays, which have prompted Air India to seek about $1 billion in compensation from Chicago-based Boeing. Singh today said a panel of ministers will discuss various options if the planemaker doesn’t agree to the claim.
Dinesh Keskar, senior vice president of sales for Boeing Commercial Airplanes in India and Asia Pacific, didn’t reply to two calls to his mobile phone and an e-mail seeking comments. The first 787 for Air India will be delivered from Everett,Washington, Wilson Chow, a company spokesman, said in an e-mail last week without elaboration. G. Prasada Rao, an Air India spokesman, also didn’t respond to two calls to his mobile phone.

Indian Airlines

The introduction of the 787 has sparked protests as Air India has given training on the new aircraft to pilots who previously worked at Indian Airlines, the state-owned domestic operator that combined with Air India in 2007.
Pilots who worked at Air India before the merger say they should be the only ones to fly the aircraft as the planes were ordered before the combination. All the 43 Airbus SAS planes bought by Indian Airlines are operated by pilots from that company even after the merger, according to the Indian Pilots’Guild, which represents about a third of Air India’s 1,500 current pilots.
An Air India pilot will have to work at least 14 years before earning promotion as a commander if pilots from Indian Airlines are also allowed to fly the new jets, said Amit Jain, a member of the Guild.

Calling in Sick

Members of the union have called in sick since May 7, forcing the carrier to cut flights to Hong Kong, Osaka and Toronto. Domestic services have largely been unaffected. Minister Singh canceled plans to attend the 787 handover because of the pilots dispute.
The carrier sent 30 pilots each from Air India and the old Indian Airlines to Singapore for training on the 787, according to Singh. The company will have 8 pilots for each Dreamliner, the first wide-body aircraft to join Air India’s fleet in more than two years. The plane will have 256 seats in a two-class configuration, according to a Boeing statement.
The Dreamliners were part of a wider fleet expansion plan that was meant to turn Air India into a major international carrier. The government combined the company with Indian Airlines to bolster its network and help it expand overseas.
Instead, the merger has left Air India mired in 438 billion rupees of debt, struggling to integrate different businesses and weighed down by labor disputes. Last year, the carrier canceled more than 1,000 flights as former Indian Airlines’ pilots stayed away from work for 10 days to complain about being paid less than their colleagues from old Air India.

‘Driven From Top’

India’s national auditor said in a report on the Ministry of Civil Aviation in 2011 that the merger was “ill-timed” and was decided without considering the difficulties involved in areas such as staff integration. The decision was “driven from the top,” said the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
“The integration has been badly managed,” said CAPA’s Somaia. “The resolution of such human-resources issues is central to Air India’s turnaround.”
The carrier, once India’s biggest, has slipped to fourth-place behind newer private carriers, Jet Airways (India) Ltd. (JETIN), IndiGo and SpiceJet Ltd. (SJET), which have lower costs and fewer staff. The airline had 17.6 percent of the market in April, according to data published by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

Worst Performance

The carrier may also post a loss of 70 billion rupees in the year ending March, the worst performance nationwide, CAPA said in a report last week. Air India probably lost 78.5 billion rupees last fiscal year, Minister Singh said in a written reply in parliament on April 25.
The government has injected 72 billion rupees into Air India since April 1, 2009. That support has weighed on other Indian carriers including Jet and billionaire Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. (KAIR), which have made losses while competing with the state-subsidized company.
The 787s may help Air India to start turning around its reputation, domestically and overseas, as the company is only the third carrier to receive one. All Nippon Airways Co. (9202) got the first in September followed by Japan Airlines Co. in March.
The Dreamliner marks a breakthrough as it’s the first aircraft to be built with a large plastic fuselage. That helps cut fuel usage as much as 20 percent and has allowed carriers to open new routes that were previously weren’t profitable with larger planes.
“The 787 will make a qualitative difference to Air India’s image and position,” said Harsh Vardhan, chairman of Starair Consulting, a New Delhi-based company that advises carriers.“But any strike creates a terrible damage to the brand value of an organization.”

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-28/air-india-pilot-squabbles-mar-dreamliner-debut-corporate-india?category=%2F

Kingfisher Airlines to sell off Mumbai office building

Bangalore/Mumbai, May 29:

Cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines plans to raise between Rs 90 crore and Rs 100 crore from the sale of its corporate office building in Mumbai.

Bankers belonging to the lending consortium told Business Line that the airline has approached the bank to give a go-ahead for the sale of Kingfisher House, located on the Western Express Highway. “The file is with the heads of banks now, and any decision on the approval is yet to be conveyed to the company,” said a bank official.

“However, there is no specific reason for the delay, and it is just taking the procedural time,” he clarified. The company has mortgaged the building to some of the banks of the lending consortium.

Kingfisher House in Mumbai was the airline's corporate headquarters till the company decided to put the building on the block for raising funds. In late-September last year, Mr Vijay Mallya, Chairman of UB Group, said that the company had moved into a new building in Mumbai and that Kingfisher House was redundant to its needs. “So, we will obviously look to sell it. Any initiative that we can take to reduce our debt is going to be pursued,” he had said then.

When contacted, the UB spokesperson denied some media reports saying that the UB Tower in Bangalore was not for sale. He, however, did not respond to the query on the sale of the Kingfisher House in Mumbai.

In another development, KFA's accounts were frozen by the IT department again. The company, which had outstanding TDS claims of Rs 342 crore resulting in its accounts getting frozen, had assured the I-T department that it would pay Rs 9 crore every week. In early-May this year, Kingfisher Airlines made an initial payment of Rs 44 crore, after which the accounts were de-frozen.

However, it appears that the company had not made the payments for the past couple of weeks, which resulted in its accounts getting frozen again. In a statement, KFA spokesperson said, “The IT department attached two of our bank accounts on May 24 which was not in accordance with the speaking order of the Hon'ble IT Appellate Tribunal during the hearing. Subsequently, in a written order of May 25, the tribunal set aside the entire demand made by the IT assessing officer. As such there are no tax dues to be currently paid and the attachment orders on two bank accounts have to be lifted.”

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/logistics/article3470019.ece

Bangalore airport get certificate for carbon reduction

New Delhi, May 29:

The next time you fly into or out of Bangalore airport you will have done your bit to save the environment as the airport has been globally recognised for managing and reducing their carbon emissions.

Bangalore, along with Mumbai airport, have been presented with certificates in recognition of their achievements under the various levels of Airport Carbon Accreditation by Airports Council International (ACI).

Bangalore airport, which is the busiest in South India, has been given a certificate for carbon reduction. Mumbai airport on the other hand has been awarded the certificate for mapping carbon emissions.

The ‘mapping' step of the Airport Carbon Accreditation, is the first and most basic step which requires measuring the carbon footprint of the airport while the ‘reduction' step of the Airport Carbon Accreditation requires carbon management and progress towards a reduced carbon footprint.

Sources in Bangalore International Airport Ltd to Business Line that the steps taken by the airport at the time of construction allowed them to apply straight for level 2 certification rather than move from level 1 to level 2.

Interestingly, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has now mandated all airports to maintain their carbon inventory or a measurement of their carbon footprint.

The process comes at a price. “For this accreditation in particular, there was a fee of €7,000 and verification of three years data by DNV of about Rs 3 lakh,” a BIAL source said.

“The accreditation should give airlines a feeling that their operating costs will come down and their on- time performance will improve as they will not have to wait before being given clearance to land,” BIAL, Vice-President, Engineering and Maintenance, Mr Hari Kumar, told Business Line.

The ACI Europe launched its Airport Carbon Accreditation in 2009 which provided an independent tool for assessing and recognising airports' efforts in managing and reducing their CO2 emissions.

In November 2011, the programme received support from International Civil Aviation Organisation and was extended to the Asia-Pacific region. Abu Dhabi Airport was the first airport in this region to be accredited.

This time, along with Bangalore and Mumbai airports, Singapore's Changi airport has also been awarded the Airport Carbon Accreditation.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/logistics/article3469698.ece?ref=wl_industry-and-economy